MASTER 
NEGA  TIVE 

NO.  91-80069 


MICROFILMED  1991 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES/NEW  YORK 


44 


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AUTHOR: 


TITLE : 


N0RMAN,S1R  HENRY 


ALL  THE  RUSSIAS 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


DATE: 


1902 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
I'RESERVATiON  DEPARTMENT 

BI BLIOGRAI'HIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Master  Negative  # 


Original  Material  as  Fihried  -  Exisiing  Bibliograpluc  Record 


"'"■"■pinnyijiyquMiiiiiiiHI  II  gni>w»ni»i^wninpi'  nmmm  ''  «ipi  Mg'-yy^ 


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^^  ^J'*'  liii>sias;  ira\'t'is  and  ^tiidii'S  in  i'oii!«'iij|nara!'v 
^'^.trofH^an  Russia.  Miilaial.  Silnaaa,  tin'  ('au^aisns,  aial 
*  i-utrm  A^aa.  is}-  1  hairy  Nnriiiaf.  ...  with  one  Jiundred 
•^•^»d  t\\aasl\-anne  ilhi^f  rat  ions  chiniiy  from  thn  aiitlinr's 
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r.    M.    THE    TSAR    AND    ISARITSA    AT    Ht>MF 


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BY 


HENRY    NORMAN,   M.P. 


,,  „,„    OK   ••  .  MK    PEOPLES   .NO   ^^^^^   ' 

"THE    REAL    JAPAN,       LTC. 


HE     EAR    EAST 


^.XH  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTV-NINE  "-I^^^J^^J'^^-^ 
CHIEFLY  FROM  THE  AUTHORS  PHOTOGRAPHS 

AND    FOUR    MAPS 


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NEW  YORK    ■    • 
CHARLES  SCRIBNERS   SONS 

1902 


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Copyright,  1902,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published,  September,   1902 


'II 


TO 
MY  SON   NIGEL 

olim  hoc  pro  patre  loquetur 


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PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 

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PREFACE 

-T-HIS  volume  is  the  outcome  of  fifteen  years'  interest  in 
1       Russian  affairs,   cuhrunating  in   four   joumeys-one  o 
„early  30.ooo  mlles-in  European  and  Asiatic  Russ.a      In    he 
course  of  these,  besides  a  residence  of  some  t,me  m  St.  Peters 
:  ga.^  visits  to  the  principal  cities,  I  travelled  in  F.nland,  m 
S    La  as  far  as  LaUe  BaiUal  (I  had  P--'^^--;^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
tok)    in  the  Caucasus,  and  in  Central  As,a  as  far  as  the  frontier 
If  Kashgar      During  all  these  journeys  1  was  afforded  oppor- 
nu"  ^f  seeing  and  investigating  every  matter  that   r..ese 
„e,  and  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  duef  Rus   an  ad 
nnnistrators  in  every  part.     Indeed,  official  courtesy  vvent  so  f  r 
convey  me,  by  a  special  train  and  a  special  steamer,  to 
;;!  I  could  not  otherwise  have  seen,  and  to  provide  for  my 
safety  on  another  occasion  by  an  escort  of  Cossacks. 

I  case  the  reader  may  wonder  how.  without  a  mastery 
the  Russian  language,  I  held  the  conversations  and  made  the 
inquiries  here  described,  I  may  say  that  during  my  chief  jour- 
le  s  I  took  with  me  as  interpreter  a  young  Russian  gentleman 
a  Lident  of  law  at  the  University  of  Moscow,  whose  knowledge 
and  intelligent  sympathy  were  of  the  greatest  service  to  me 
Without  such  help,  or  the  ability  to  speak  Russian  fluently   a 
journey  for  any  serious  purpose  in  Russia  outside  the  two  capitals 
would  be  a  waste  of  time. 


m 


■ft 


»v 


PREFACE 


It  has  not  l>een  ,ny  c.bject  to  write  a  cmprehensive  account 
of   Russian  n>st,tutK>ns  and   Russian   Ufe.     Tins  ex.sts   ,n  ad- 
,,.ab,e   for.   in   the   two   vulun.es   of    S,r    DonaUl   Macken.e 
XVallace,  which  remain,  when  allowance  is  ma.le  tor  the  changes 
since  the,r  pubUcation.  the  most  n.struct.ve  and  trustworthy  gen- 
eral work  upon  Russ.a.     My  own  modest  ant,  has  been  to  pre- 
sent a  picture  of  the  aspects  of  contemporary  Russ.a  ot  most 
interest  to  foreigtt  readers,  wuh  especal  reference  to  the  recent 
remarkable  industrial   attd  conttt.ercial   development  of   Kuss.a. 
and  the  possibility  of  closer  commercal  and  pohtical  relat.ons 
between  Russia  attd  (ireat  Britain.     This  last  1  regard  as  the 

»;,.„    /--iftpi-    \n"-lo-.\merican   relations)    in 
most  important  question    (attei    .\tw' 

British  foreign  politics  to-day.  _ 

As  in  former  books.  I  have  tried  to  present  m  their  natura 
relationship  the  picturesque  surface  and  the  solid  substratum  of 
fact,  in  the  hope  of  making  my  pages  at  the  same  time  enter- 
taining and  informing.     1  trust,  therefore,  that  the  reader  will 
not  resent  the  occasional  close  proximity  of  the  Hght  and  the 

weighty.  ,    . 

It  has  been  mv  strenuous  endeavour  to  be  fair  an<l  frank  in 

my  judgments,  and  so  far  as  one  may.  to  divest  myself  of  inborn 
and  acquired  prejudices.     I  have  never  accepted  any  courtesy 
that  might  in  the  slightest  degree  fetter  my  freedom  of  speech. 
Feelings  about  each  other,  however,  run  so  high  in  both  Rus- 
sians and  Englishmen  that  it  is  probably  impossible  for  a  writer 
of  either  country  to  hold  the  balance  of  bis  judgment  perfectly 
level    but  I  anticipate  with  satisfaction  that  in  England  I  shall 
be  regarded  as  too  pro-Russian,   and   in   Russia   as   too   antt- 

Russian. 

With  two  insignificant  exceptions-the   Governor  of   Sam- 


:« 


i 


PREFACE  ^ 

arkand  and  the  Chief  of   Police  at  Askhabad-I   received  at 
,„  times  the  greatest  kindness  and  courtesy,  indeed,  the  mos 
friendly  help,  from  Russian  officials  everywhere.     Ihe  hst  of  all 
,.  .,Hon.  1  owe  thanks,  including  many  British  representatives. 
,vould  be  too  long,  and  I  must  therefore  content  myself  with  a 
cordial  acknowledg..ent  in  general  terms.     I  cannot  omit,  bow- 
ever,  to  beg  His  Excellency,  Monsieur  de  ^V^--  ^^'^ - 
Finance,  to  accept  my  most  sincere  and  respectfu    thanks  f  r 
permitting  me  to  have  frequent  recourse  to  his  distmgui.i  d 
assistance,   and   for  honouring  my   journeys  .ith   a   sympathy 
which  opened  to  me  every  official  door  in  Russia. 

To  escape  one  minor  criticism  1  may  say  that  my  rendering 
of   Russian  proper  names  exhibits  certain   inconsistencies,  bu 
that,  while  retaining  accepted  spellings  of  familiar  names  I  have 
endeavoured  to  follow  a  simple  and  accurate  system  of  trans- 

'"'Tirmajoritv  of  my  illustrations  are  reproduced  from  my 

'ri,P   rest   I   orocured   in   the  places  where 
own   photographs.      The   rest   i   prou  i 

thev  were  taken.  The  striking  photographs  of  Tl^^-'-^J^^J- 
esties  the  Tsar  and  Tsaritsa  were  taken  by  Messrs.  Can  &  Co., 
of  Tsarskoe  Selo.       The  maps  have  been  specially  drawn  for 

xi.  -N. 

this  volume. 


1 

1 


CONTENTS 


> 


^   ! 


THE   CAPITALS 

'"T      St.   Petersburg  and  the  Way  There       .       .       • 
IL       The  Two  Moscows,  and  a  Few  Reflections       . 

COUNT  TOLSTOI  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD 

III.       Leo,  the  Son  of  Nicholas 

FINLAND 

IV.        Finland:   the  Land  of  Wood  and  Water      .       . 
V.       The  Finns  and  Their  Neighbours      .... 

SIBERIA 

VL       The  Significance  of  Siberia 

VIL       Thk  ('xKEat  Siberian  Railway 

VIU.       Siberia  From  the  Train  ...•••' 

IX.       Siberian  Civilisation 

X.       The  Prison  of  Irkutsk 


XI. 


THE  GREAT  WATER-WAY 

**  Little  Mother  Volga" 

THE  CAUCASUS 


XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 


The  Frosty  Caucasus 
The  Georgian  Road  . 

TiFLlS    OF    THE    CrOSS-ROADS 

The  Oil-Wells  of  Baku  . 


PAGB 
I 

23 


47 


.     64 
.     79 


.     96 

.  102 
.  127 
.   142 

.   157 


.   164 


.   172 
.   181 

.  202 
.   219 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CENTRAL  ASIA 


I'ACjK 


CHAl'TKK 

XVI. 


XVII. 
XVIII. 

XIX. 
XX. 


Thk  Trans-C.xspian   Raiiavav  :   Across  Central  Ama 

,,.  ....   228 

i;V      I  RAIN 

Russian  Kxpanmon   in   Ckntrai.  A^ia       .       .        •        •    -54 
Russian    Administkahon    in    Ckntkal  Asia:    Trans- 

Caspia  and  Tashkeni- 

New  Bokhara  and  lis  Prospects  .... 
Old  Bokhara  and  Its  Horrors  .... 
Samarkand  and  Beyond        


ECONOMICS 

XXII.  U.    DE    WlTTE    AND    HiS    POLICV       .  .  •  • 

XXIII.  RUSSIAN    IMNANCE.    COMMERCE,    AND    INDUSTRY 

FOREIGN   POLITICS 

XXIV.        Russia  and  the  Nations       .... 
XXV.       Russia  and  Knc;land 

CONCLUSION 

XXVI.      Retrospect  and  Prospect 


•  • 


APPENDIX 


•  • 


•  • 


272 


287 
297 


•   349 
.    3^J3 


•  413 


INDEX 


•  449 

•  457 

•  459 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Froyitispicce 

PAGE 

.  Pktersburg  .       4 
.  facing    8 

•  ^^ 

.  facing  20 

•  23 

•  23 
.      27 


III.,  Moscow 


T.  M.  THE  Tsar  am>  Tsarifsa  at  Home      . 

The  Russian   l'..i.i(  kman  '         '         '         '         '^  p,*       c 

THK  Fortress  and  Ca.  hedral  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paue,  S 

CVTHEDRAL    OF    St.     IsAAC,    ST.     PETERSBURG    .  .  • 

T„E  Nevski   ProM'E.t,   St.    Petershuro         . 
The  Ministry  of  War,  Si.   Petersm  R(;       • 

(;VTE    AND    CHAPE.,    oE    THE    O.D    CiTV,    MOSCOW      .  . 

\  (;me  ce  the  Oil)  City,   Moscow      .         .         •         • 

^VnMEN    IN    THE    SlNDAY    MARKET,    MoSCoW     .  •  '^^'^^^'^r^'.V^ 

THE  CVTHEDRAE  OF  ST.  lUsiE  THE  BEATIFIED,  MOSCOW.  SIXIEENTH  CENTl  R^ 

THE    KREMLIN,    MoSCoW,    FROM    THE    KaMENNY    BRIDGE 

The  Kremlin,   Moscow 

H    M    THE  Tsar  at  the  Man(EUVRES  . 

THE  Kremlin  Soiare  and  Memorial  oe  Alexander 

1>,R()KEN    Down    on    THE    StEITE  .  •  •  • 

TaLI'ING    the    TELE(iRAPH    FOR    HkLL  . 

The  Home  of  the  Romanoffs,   Moscow      . 
The  (lATEWAY  OF  Vasnaya  Polyana     . 
CoTNi-  Tolstoy  at  Home       .         •         •         •         • 
VvsNxYx  Polyana.  Colnt  Toestoy's  Home  (Front) 
Va.naya  Polyana.  Count  Tolstoy's  Home  (Back) 
A  Country  House  in  Finland      .         .        •        • 
The  City  and  Harbour  of  Helsingfors    . 
The  Diet  House,   Helsingfors     .         .         .         ■ 
The  Bur(;hers'  Chamber        •         •         •         •         • 

FINIXND'S    LOYE    FOR    ALEXANDER    II.        • 

THE    FINNISH    LANDSCAPE-MOUNTAIN.     LaKE,    FoREST 

A  Road  in  Finland        ..•••• 
\  Finnish  Mourning  St.amp  •  •         • 

F.sn'ish  agriculture-burning  the  woods  for  a  seed-bed 
Ariiippaina  Miihkali,  the  Finnish  Blind  Bard        .         • 
The  Rune-singers  ...••••* 

Finnish  Typks         •••■''" 
Smmon  Traps  in  Finland      .         •         •         •         *         '     j     _ 
X  F,ss-,sH  WK.nn.N.-.:  Thk  Bku.k's  Pkavkr  on  Leaving  Home 

Veiling  the  Dowered  Bride 

ix 


Field 


29 

•  31 

•  Zl 

facing  3b 

37 

39 

43 

4S 

51 

53 

56 

57 
66 

68.  69 

■     71 

.  72 
73 
75 
/  / 
79 
81 

84 
86 

88 
90 
92 

93 


VUl 


CONTENTS 


rAf.K 


ECONOMICS 

XXII.  M.     I>H    WiTTE    AND    IIlS     POLICV       .  .  -  • 

XXIII.       RussEVN   Finance,   Commv.kck,  and  Industry 
FOREIGN   POLITICS 

XXIV.  RUSSL\    AND    THE     NATIONS 

XXV.       Russia  and  Kn(;eand 

CONCLUSION 

XXVI.      Retrospect  and   Prosi'ECT 

APPENDIX 


•  • 


INDEX 


8 


CENTRAL  ASIA 

The  Tran.-Casi'ian   Rau  way  :   Across  Central  Ama 

i;v    Ira  IN 

Rus>L\N   Expansion   in   Central  A^ia       .       .        •        •    -54 
RussLAN    Administrahon    in    Central   A^l\  :    Trans- 

Casima  and  Tashkent "'" 

XIX.        New  Bokhara  and  Irs  Prospects -^7 

XX.       Old  Bokhara  and  Its  Horror^ ^9' 

XXI.       Samarkand  and  Beyond 3^9 


CHAI'TKK 

XVI. 


XVII, 
XVIII 


.   349 


•   3^1 
.  413 


.   449 


•   457 


459 


I) 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


T.   M.  THE  Tsar  and  Tsaritsa  at  Home 


:)F  Sr.  Pktf.r  and  St.  Paul,  S'i 


TnK  Russian   Poi.k  kman 

TiiF  Fortress  and  Cathedral  ( 

CVIHKDRAL    OK    ST.    IsAAC,    Sl     PeTERSBURC 

The  Nkx^ki   Prosi-kct.  St.   Petershuro 

TiiK  Ministry  of  War,  St.   Petkrsiu  rc       . 

(;mk  and  CHArKi.  of  the  Old  Cnv,   Moscoxv    .         . 

A    (lATE    OF    THE    OlD    CEIY,    MoSCOW        •  •  '  ' 

WoMFN    IN    THE    SlNDAV    MARKET,    MoSCOW     . 
THF  C  VTHEDRAI.  OF  ST.  BaSIL  THE   BEATIFIED,  MOSCOW,  SiXT 
THE    KREMLIN,    MoSCoW,     FROM    THE    KaMENNY    BRIDGE 

The  Kremlin,   Moscow  ..••••• 
II     M.  THE  Tsar  at  the  Manceuvres  .         .         •         • 
THE  Kremlin  Socare  and  Memorl-xl  of  Alex.^nder  III. 
Broken  Down  on  the  Steppe       .         .         •         • 

TaPPINO    the    TKI.ECiRAPH    FOR    HELP  . 

The  Home  of  the  Romanoffs,   Moscow      . 
The  C.atewav  of  Vasnava  Polyana     . 
CoCNP  Tolstoy  at  Home       .         .         •         •         • 
VxsNXYX  Polyana.  Coint  Tolstoy's  Home  (Front) 
Va^naya  Polyana.  Count  Tolstoy's  Home  (B.^ck) 
A  Country  House  in  Finland      .         .        •        • 
The  City  and  Harbour  of  Helsinofors    . 
The  Diet  House,   Helsinofors     .         .         •         • 
The  BuRtHiERs'  Chamhkr        .         •         •         •         • 

FINIXND'S    LOYE    FOR    AlKXANDKR    II.        • 

THE    FINNISH    LANDSCAPE-MOUNTAIN,     LaKE.    FoREST 

A  Road  in  Finland        .-•••• 
\  Finnish  Mourning  Stamp  •  •         • 

Finnish  Aoriculture-Burninc;  the  Woods  for  a  Seed 

ARHIPPAINA    MiIHKALI,    THE    FINNISH    BLIND    BaRD 

The  Rune-singers  ...••• 

Finnish  Types  -•••■' 

SxiMoN  Traps  in  Finland      .         .         •         •         • 
A  Finnish  Wedding:  The  Bride's  Prayer  on  Leaving 

Vfiling  the  Dowered  Bride 


Froyitispiece 

PAGE 

I 

Petersburg  .       4 
.facing    8 

.  facing  20 

•  23 
.  25 
.     27 

eenth  Century     29 

•  31 

•  13 

.  facing  3t) 

Moscow  .    .  37 

.  39 

.  43 

.  45 

.  51 

.  53 

.    .  56 

•  57 

.  66 
68.  69 

.  71 


Fi 


LD 


B 


ED 


H 


ome 


73 

75 
/  / 
79 
81 

84 
86 
88 
90 
92 

93 


IX 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


I'KIM  1   \  Al      !•'  'Kl  -  I 

l.i    1  \\  1   IN       1-J    Kull-.     AM> 


UK    li   K 


^S 


A  Finnish   Pfari-fisih  u 

A    Sir.KRIAN     I.o(  OMCI  1\H 

A    I'ARTV  <•!    Kidman    Knt-imfkn  in"  m 

-.,,,,     •,■,„.     nl.       IIIK      l-RAls-lin.      WAIKR-IAKIIN^ 

A-'IA  . 

Till      KaII  WAV     IN     lllK     I   RAl  > 

Tin,  SiKAMMiii"   ••  Baikal"  Stivmin<;    mik-m.ii 

|;nW  ..K    TllK    "HaIKAI."     liRlAKlN..     MH.    I '  J'- 

I'HK  LaSI     SlAllnN     IN     MlRORK  •  •  ■  • 

[UE  15..rNl.ARV    RKTWKKN     KrRnI>i:    ANL    AmA 

rilK  Town    of    ZLA1A..FST    FRnM     IHF    KaIIAVAV        . 

(;,.i,i)-i)ir.(;KRs  Waiunc  ior   ihf    Trmn 

What  you  Sef  for   Days  from    ihf  Siffrfxn    Kxirf 

ThF    WATER-TOWKR    am.    SfoRF-HoF-.F    Al     KVFRV    SlAlK.N 
ThF    RKCUFAR    SIHFRIAN    STATION      . 

Siberian   Peasants  Watuhin.;  the  Train 

Bfifi)IN«;  a  iluT  in    ihe  Tau;a      . 

The  Tower  of  the  Fire-wakh,  Irkui>k 

The  City  of  Irkuisk     .         .         •         ■ 

The  Technkae  S(  Hv)of,   Irkutsk  .         •         •         • 

The  Museum,   Irkutsk  .••••* 

The  Cathedral,  Irkuisk      ..•••' 

Poor  Siherian   Peasani 

Prosferous  Siberian   Peasani-       .         •         •         •         • 
Inside  the  Prison,  Irkutsk-A  (;r..uf  of  Convicts  to  fe 

The  Vofoa 

A  Timber  Haroe  on  the  Vt)L(;A   .         .         .         •         • 
Caucasl\n  Tyi'Es— Taiars      ..•••• 

A  Tekkin  Family    .         .         •         • 
**         The  Reaf  Circassian      . 


I)  I 


RIHFTED 


Batum  ...•••••■ 
Vladikavkaz,  at  the  Fooi  of  the  Caitasfs  . 
The  Georoian  Road:   A  Woofiy  Wave       . 

Rfssian    Fori    in   the   Pass 

The  Casii.f  of    Prin(  ess   Tamara  in  the 

OF   Darifi 

*'  ROFND     IHE    MoUNlAlN    SlDE      . 

The  Tor  (»f  the  Pass— Ofd  Road 
Crossino   the  SuMMir       .         .         •         • 
How  THE  Road  comes  down  at  Mleti 

Shoeinc.  an  Ox  in  the  Caucasus 

TlFLIS         .  • 


lAl.l 

121 

122 
I2S 
129 

•  Cv> 
.  134 

•  Co 

•  C^7 
.  C>9 
.  140 
.  142 

•  143 

.    147 

•  149 
•151 
.    152 

•  Cs5 

I()0 

i()6 
167 

173 
175 

177 

179 

183 

186 

iS(.> 


C.oROE 


( < 


1Q2 
D)4 

197 
199 
201 
203 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


it 


TIFFIS    AND    THE    RUINs    OF    THE    CiTADEL 

A  Pfi   of  Ofd  Tiffis      .         •         •         • 

A    CaU(  AMAN    TYI'E-RoSTOM    THE    GUIDE 
WINF-SKUNS    AND    THE    Wl  N  E-SHOF,  TlFLlS 

The  Shamfooer  <'F  Tiffis     . 

A  Chat  ai   the  Wine-shof,  Tiflis 

A  Wandering  Pe(;(;ar,  Tiflis 

A  "  FoUNiAiN  "  Al    Baku 

The  Raifway   Station,   Baku 

THF  Landino-Staoe  ai   Krasnovodsk 

The  Raifway  Station, 

'i^ii.-  'Fr  \\s-C\SFiAN  Train 

i::.  t:::,  •....,  O,,,,  K..,..k,s  ^^.   n..  N...   R.u,w.v 

'V,    K      WllTTK     IHF     T'RAIN     SlOl'S      . 

Bread-seffers  at  a  Station 
In  the  New  Tashkent  .        •         •         • 

Tashkent  :  A  Cossack  Patrol      . 
The  Boys'  College    . 
««  A  Familiar  Sight 

•«  The  Arba     .         •         •         *         ' 

**  Father  and  Son 

Bokhara  :  City  and  Citadel         .         •        * 

The  Portal  of  the  Amirs  I  alace 

••  The  "  Batch  a"     •         •         •         • 

«•  The  Unveiled  Ladies 

•*  A  Street  Grimacer     • 

««  The  Tower  of  Fxecutions 

4«  The  Approach  to  the  Prison    . 

«  The  Prison  Gate  and  the  Gaoler 
The  Door  of  the  Great  Prison 

«»  The  Horror  of  Horrors   . 


Samarkand:  The  Rigistan 


•« 

<« 

•( 

« 
it 
i( 
i< 
(< 


A  Sart       .•••'' 

The  Madrassa  Shir  Dar 

The  Madrassa  of  Ulugh  Beg 

Interior  of  Shir  Dar    . 

Portal  of  the  Tomb  of  Tamerlane     . 

Thf  Tomb  of  Tamerlane       .        •        •        •        " 

„  ,t  The  Upper  Chamber    • 

a  The  Crypt  Where  He 

Mausoleum  of  Bibi  Khanum  •         •        •         • 


XI 

PAGE 
.  205 
.  207 
.  20S 
.  210 
.  211 
.  212 

.  213 
.  221 

.  225 

.  229 

•  231 

.  232 

.  233 


Lies 


241 

244 

250 

274 
27b 

27^ 
280 
282 
284 

298 
,  300 
.  302 
.  303 
.  307 
.  308 

•  311 

.  312 

•  314 
.  31^ 
.  321 

•  323 

•  324 

•  325 
.  327 
.  329 
.  330 
.  331 
•  332 
.  334 


Xll 


LIST    OF    ILLUSIKAIIONS 


Samarkand:    I^'MI;  ^'F    Hn^i    Khax'm     .  .  •  • 

Mausoleum    \m.   M"SQUE  of  Sm  xh   /iNi'xn 

(I  TNTKK  !'  'i;.    I  '!     >ii  \n    /  1  \  i  ' AH 

4»  'I'iii      li.H   K    "i     Tk  \\  KR 

Thf    AvFN-rr   of   A.nlijan 
iiii    N\n\i^   I'MiirFMW   or  Anlijan     . 
l'\.  Ki\..  Cotton    in    Ammjan 

I  in      l.\  i  K  WCE    T(-)    Osn 

A   KiK    m;     Family  Shopping  in  Osh    . 

A   Mother  am    Daughter  of  Osh  and  thi 

*'OsH.  AND  No  Mistake!"— The  End  of 

iii.  Lxcellency  M.  de  Witte.  Minister  of  Finance 


EiR  Home 
My  Journey 


r.\r.F. 

.*>,•)' 

339 

.  3-i4 
.  345 
•  346 
.  347 
.  353 


'YuV    TKAS-SlFi   K!\N      K  \  H  AV  A  \    i  /\rf^rn    SfCtioft)        . 

RAnwAV^  "F   111!    Caucasus 

TUF    •rRAN>-CAM!AN     K  Ml  ^^  AV  .  •  •  • 

Kauavav    I'.XFWMmN    !\    A^FV  .  •  •  • 


PAGE 

.  107 

•  ->^ 
/'tiring'  260 


ALL    THE    RUSSIAS 


n . 


THE   CAPITALS 


CHAPTER    I 


ST.    PETERSBURG   AND   THE   WAY   THERE 


RrSSTA!''  .  1 

stnkes  the  ear!     Does  any  .<.,!  ,n  auy  language,  except  the 
dear  ivMuc  oi  one's  oxvn  knul.  niean  as  much  tn-dav.  _ 

''"  .      \\i,a,    /.  Russia?     The  uutettered  u-re- 

sponsibk,  limitless,  absolr,tc  rr.lc  .-i  uue  mau 
over   a  lnui(lre<l   ui.llions   of   his  lelloxvs— is 
that    i;?     The   il^on   m   the   corner   of  every 
,-,H,iu    where    the    language    i-^    -p.^ker.    the 
l,]uc^.louic.l  basilica  u,  every  street  of  great 
,nic^     the    longTiaired    priests    chain. ug    lu 
,k  ep  ha^s.  the  pe.lestrian  ceaselessly  crossing 
l„„i^eh'.  the  Eioly  Syno.l.  uhu.e  Ou-l-givcn 
UL-,k  U  is  to  coerce  or  to  caj..lc  a  heathen 
worhl  to  nrtho.loxv-i.  thai  Russia?     Or  is 
n    the   society   of   the   capital,    speaking    ;ill 
hnuuages.  familiar  with  all  litenitiires,  i>rac- 
tisi'nsi  every  art,  lapped  in  every  luxury,  es- 
teeming manners  more  highly  than  moral>.- 
(  )r  is  it  the  vast  an<l  nearly  roadless  countrv, 
where  settlements  are  to  distances  like  tly- 
.pecks    to    vvindoNV-panes:    Nvhere  the    con- 
venience,  the   comforts,   and   often   the   decencies   of   civdisa- 
t- ;:  may    be   sought    m    vam    outside    the    towns   and    away 


The  Russian  Policeman 


—-'•—■■  I ». 


2  ALL     rni.    lU  SSLAS 

fi-nm    the   lines   of   railway;   where   entire    villa-es   are   (be    prev 
of  disease:  where    seven    people   onl    of  every   ten   can    neither 

read  nor  write? 

Siberia  is  Russia— five  million  s(iuare  miles,  in  which  whole 
countries  are  a  ([uiverini,^  carpet  of  wild-tlowers  in  sprin-.  a  rollm- 
crrain-tield  in  autumn,  an  ice-bound  waste  in  winter,  stored  full 
of  every  mineral,  crossed  by  the  lon-est  railway  in  the  world,  and 
largely  inhabited  by  a  ])opulation  of  convicts  and  exiles. 

Central  Asia  is  Russia— a  million  and  a  half  scjuare  miles  of 
barren  desert  and  irrigated  oasis,  the  most  famous  cities  of  Asia 
and  the  greatest  river,  a  few  years  ago  the  hot-bed  of  Mussulman 
fanaticism,  probably  the  cradle  of  the  human  race,  and  possibly 
the  scene  of  its  most  fateful  conthct. 

The  Eastern  Ouestion  is—how  will  Russia  try  again  to  get 
Constantinople?  The  Far  h:astern  Ouestion  is— will  Russia  suc- 
ceed in  dominating  China?  A  (piestion  of  cpiestions  for  the 
British  Empire  is — will  Russia  attempt  to  invade  India? 

The  Triple  Alliance  is  a  league  against  Russia.  The  Dual 
Alliance  is  Russia's  reply.  Russia  called  the  nations  to  the  Con- 
ference of  Peace. 

It  would  be  easier  to  say  what  is  //('/  Russia.  In  world- 
affairs,  wherever  you  turn  you  see  Russia:  whenever  you  listen 
you  hear  her.  She  moves  m  every  path:  she  is  nuning  in  every 
claim.  The  "  creeping  nuirmur  "  of  the  world  is  her  footfall — 
the  "  poring  dark  "  is  her  veil,  do  the  challenge  of  the  nations, 
as  they  peer  frv.m  their  borders,  comes  ever  the  same  reply — 

'*  Who  goes  there?  " 

"  Russia!  " 


It  is  a  long  way  to  St.  Petersburg  on  the  map.  Across  a 
corner  of  PTance,  right  across  Belgium,  across  Germany,  and  a 
final  northward  stretch  up  to  the  Gulf  of  Finland— what  an  end- 
less railway  journey  it  must  be!  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  capital 
of  Russia  is  a  whole  day  nearer  London  by  rail  than  Seville,  and 


S'L.   PETERSBURG  AND    I  HE  WAY    IHERE     3 

exactlv  the  same  distance  as  Xai)les.     Vou  leave  Charing  Cross 
at  eleven;    an  engine,  dining-car  and  sleeping-car  of  the  Inter- 
national Sleeping-Car  Company  are  waiting  on  a  siding  at  Calais; 
as  soon  as  the  conductor  has  secured  all  the  passengers  on  his 
list  the  little  train  starts  with  a  rush,  and  hardly  checks  its  almost 
alarming  speed  until  it  lands  you  on  the  platform  at  Brussels, 
ahead  of  the  train  from  Ostend  which  brings  the  direct  passengers 
from  Dover— the  better  route— by  its  proper  few  minutes.    Only 
once  are  you  delayed  by  one  of  the  ridiculous  performances  so 
dear  to  the  heart  of  the  Continental  official.    At  Blandain,  where 
the  train  enters  Belgium,  all  the  registered  luggage  is  bundled 
out  upon  the  platform,  hastily  fumbling  porters  thread  string 
through  the  buckles  and  handles  of  each  bag  and  portmanteau, 
and  a  solemn  functionary,  approaching  like  a  questioner  of  the 
Inquisition,  afffxes  lead  seals  to  the  knots,  by  means  of  a  pair 
of  iron  forceps  a  yard  long.    You  leave  Brussels  at  four  minutes 
past  six,  the  German  frontier  is  crossed  at  Herbesthal  at  half- 
past  nine,  and  you  are  in  bed  as  the  tram  runs  through  Cologne 
at  eighteen  minutes  past  eleven.     While  you  are  taking  your 
morning  coff'ee  the  miles  of  new  houses,  wide  streets,  and  long 
avenues''  of  Berlin  flash  by— the  newestdooking  capital  in  the 
world,  and  all  day  long  the  plains  of  agricultural  Ciermany  un- 
roll, where  innumerable  stacks  of  straw  prove  how  grain  grows 

under  an  agrarian  tariff. 

Military  concentration  is  writ  large  over  the  railway  here- 
abouts. At  every  station  as  you  approach  the  frontier  the  lines 
expand  into  a  dozen,  each  alongside  a  platform,  obviously  that 
trains  mav  be  filled  and  emptied  quickly,  collected  or  distributed 
without  b'lock  and  delay,  if  ever  it  should  be  necessary  to  hurl 
the  military  might  of  Germany  northward.  So  far  as  transport 
is  concerned,  the  fateful  word  "  Mobilise  "  would  evidently  find 
everything  as  ready  on  this  frontier  as  on  the  other.  One  mailed 
fist  stretches  over  the  Rhine,  but  another  is  clenched  by  the 
Baltic.     Evdtkuhnen,  the  last  frontier  station,  is  of  course  filled 


Tt 
■4 


4 


ALL    IHI-    KISSLAS 

■  itli  unifoniis.  and  as  tlie  tram  nunc-  on  wc  calcln  thron-li  the 


(hisk,   olimpsrs  ot   U)rt  ilicati<  »n^ 


1(,\\    and   broad   and   n.ew .  as   we 


have  seen   several   tnne^   already,   commanding  the  line  and   it> 
a,,nr()ache>.     1  imd  myself  wondenn-.  as  we  glide  away,  at  which 


platform  the  -ronp  of  Cleiinan  oiVicer.^  >tood  a  tew  yeafs  a-o 
to  look  for  their  traveller  from  over  the  frontier,  standin-  at 
the  sleepino-car  door  with  a  packet  m  his  hand-^a  packet  which 
bctraved  one  of  the  l)e^td<ept  secret>  of  the  world;  which  cansed 
quick   recalls   and   snrpri>inK   promotion>    in    that    class   of   men 


The  Fortress  and  Cathedral  u{  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  St.  Peterslnir^. 

who  serve  their  countries  by  comhinin.i,^  the  roles  of  .gx^^itlcman 
and  spy;  which  -ave  the  han-man  a  hastv  jol,  m  the  recesses 
of  a  famous  fortress,  and  threw  upon  the  charitv  of  liis  Majesty 
the  Tsar— never  sou.uht  in  such  circumstances  in  vain— a  widow^ 

and  a  child. 

You  make  your  entry  into  Russia  like  a  thief  in  the  nioht. 
It  is  after  cii^ht  o'clock,  and  dark,  when  you  all  i^our  in  anxious 
flood  from  the  train  into  the  Customs  Hall  at  X'ierzhbolovo.  or 
in  Genuan,  \Virl)allen.  (  ommandin--  n-urcs  in  -rev  and  -old, 
whom  vou  take  at  the  hr>t  -lance   to  be  at  least    Major-Gen- 


s 


I 


SI.  l'i;n,RSBURG  AND  THK  WAY  THERE     5 

„-,,.    ,,„,  .ho  are  really  officers  of  police  an.l  Customs,  stand 
„:  ,i,  aoors:  a  soKHer  collects  passports  as  the  passengers  enter 
■„,  „e  has  a  great  sheaf  of  all  si.es  and  colottrs;  and  a  httle 
,^.  .„-  „„,,,,  ,„  ,„ouses  a,td  n,agenta  belts  and  top-boots  ca,- 
,;,-f  L  Ktggage,  and  c,uicklv  sorts  ,t  by  the  baggage  nun - 
,,evs  it  bears.    The  officials  gather  ronn.l  a  table  m  the  middle 
\„,  ,,H,  ..Here  the   passports  are   registered  and   stamped 
,^.,,  ,  ,,,,e  that  you  cannot  leave  Russta  agan.  wuou    a 
police  permtt,  or  without  a  Russian  passport  tf  you    s  ay  has 
k  months.     I  expected  that  our  luggage  wouUl  be  ra- 
cked through  and  through.     On  the  -^^y       have  n     e 
been    ntore    courteously   treated,   nor   more   expedttiousU    ds 
h  d      Bttt  the  stnkutg  contrast  .tth  all  other  Cont.nett ta, 
alstonl'  Houses  was  the  s.lence.  the  discipHne.  the  routn.e.  the 
^r.ler— there  was  neither  rudeness  nor  chatter. 

he      uge  of  the  Russian  railway  is  wider  than  the  German 
,,Hh    1  e;,b:ious  intention  of  preventing  German  rollmg-stock 
.1  heing  available  in  Russia  in  case  of  invasion,  so  y.u  ch^ 
,,r.  here-the  onlv   time   between   Calais  and   St    Pete.b  ir 

an      1    the  night.' with  the  wood-sparks  belching  from  the  big 
~  nd  tear-ng  past  the  carriage  windows,  you  purs^ie  your 

unseen  wav  through  the  mysterious  country  whose  name     a 
sailed  differentlv  in  your  ear  from  the  name  of  every  othe 
:-:^ntrv  on  the  map  since  first  you  heard  it.    ^ou  on ly  kno     1 
is  Russia,  because  it  differs  so  much  from  every  '^^^ 
-ve  read  of  it.    The  --^^^-^:::;:tZ:'T^^^^^^^^ 

::,;  RuTsian^hing.  so  far.  in  which  popular  rumour  has  met  its 

''"pxpress  speed  in  Russia,  as  exemplified  by  the  Nord  Express 
i.  abi::.:;  miles  an  hour,  so  the  wide  car  runs  east  y  ar. 

night  passes  and  the  dawn  grow  s  pmk  and  ,r  y 


^  ^  .«.  .#  »  -  ■ 


.»  ■•^^■s  ,.-#...■ 


^<-  ♦  -  *...A  ' :.-'■.. 


it^:t.-«    -ft..-*  -  •»  " 


^,    ^    -e     ^      -r       -■^»' 


ALL   TUL    KLSSIAS 

,,-.    win    heather!    Miles  upon  nulcs  o(  the 
A„a  xvhat  do  you  sec.     W  Hn  .  ,,^.  ^,,,.,,, 

,,venaer-,nukUn,,fa,lhU,lK  nK>k.u,wni.eiaso. 

'»-'--  -"'""   ""^  so. u-h   M.    -i.n.ce.  the  Au~.mn 

ease  beneath  any  oUki   m^  .l„■ul.^^ 

,K,-v  larch    lo\v-u-vo\Nni,^  ■i'''^'"'""  '  ,      , 

(•l,n>tn.as-iree,MKei  laun  ^  u  o-,-ows  here  hv  loch 

tree  lkn.nvonK  a.  ■•  Scotch  n.n,o,auy^^.^^^^^ 

^,,,,,,  ,,,.  Scotland    .hc,.enn,,U^^^  ,,,,^^„.^, 

--' --\'^' '^  ;;r  --vol.a.hn,,.ea  cc,tta,e.  the 

is  hardly  a  M;4n  ol  hlc     l->Uie  ,.  ,^^^,,^^.^ 

house  not  to  he  hr V'^''"  '^\?i      ^v         r  in    hV  cL;    the 

,,  „,,  verv  short  in  the  straw  =-'  J^  .  ^,^,^^.,^.  ,„  ^,,  ,,,,e 

----"r^"f  ;^^7 ';:rr     r  ;:h.e  .rovuices.  ,.  not 

the  wealth  ot  KusMa-ncUho  Uuulscape.  sint- 

^'''^^'•^^^^'^"'r-\\    ;::;;:;  e-,eou,nrv  n,al,eahle  to  the 
pie,  vast,  unalterable  landscape  ^^^^^.^ 

ouch  of  an,bit,ous  or  covetous    -"-'"■^>   .    "^  ;  ^„,      ^arth 

11     1  u-    h'.lf  heartedlv,  from  tne  si)ai>c  m)il 
is  one,  rtses  '''-l^'--    '""'     '   ^^,.:,  ,,,„  ,,,oauee.     To  hint  who 
is  srini.  and  has  no  hea.t  to  lau^h  ^^^ 

de  laces  the  heather  a,td  lo,>s  us  .";-'  "  ;  '  ^^  ,,,^,^^::,,,„, 
eontes,  as  we  know,  and  suKdl  ";---  j' ^  ^,^,  „,,,,,,,. 
and  water-soddett  spaecs-for  the,e    ^     j^ '    ^^  ;^^^^,,^„,.  ,,,,, 

^';;::'";tt;        1  eaL  .u-the  .uidd..  of  the  tttoor,  ttpon  sonte 
sables,    ott     as  NN^    1  tr-nn'     Some  (is- 

poor  trodden  pathway,  ^;1"--    j;;    ^^    l  ::;;ocU,  <pntted 
heartened  peasant,  who  has  laid  b>    lus  ir  t 
the  cra/v  plough,  droppe<l  the  blunted  >.ckle.     Mack  l^ui     . 
the  cia/.N   piou^        .    '  ,^.    ,.,.,,,,  K„„,.  of  niornuiR.  hooded 

in  close  processton.  u,  the  ,>c      -  '^     "  ^  ^,;,     ,^.^,,,.. 

a„,l  shrouded  in  hunible  weed...     How   it   hits  , 

how  It  accor<ls  whh  the  uunor  scale:  how  entirely  i    ,s  o 

.  the  ,nia<nnatu.n!  It  is  the  ri^ht  thin^-.  the  onh  tlmo  cue 
uUv  o  :uit  with  this  Russian  n.oorlaud.  where  life  is  no 
eru^led",  where  death  is  all  at  lionte.    It  is-well,  posstbly  it 


vxTT^  THE  WAY  THERL     7 
ST    PETERSBURG  AND  THE  wa 

■  .,ct  stav  our  reflections,  tor 

funeral  procession  at  all, 

.noovland.  too.  ^^.         ^^^j,,  or  two  enormous 

And   what    cUe  do  ^^e  see.  ^^^^^^_  .^  ^^^^^^  ,^,„g, 

„f  pn-e.vood  and  -'-;;.  ';::^^^;,,  ,„,  .cres  of  this  cheap- 
,.aia,d  withutarvd  ntsprec    un     ac  ^^^^^^  .  ^  ^^^..^^  ,^  ,,,  , 
est  and  costliest  of  tuel.-chcape,  ^   ^^^  ^^^^^^.^^^^    ^„,,, 

^•'-^  "^  -  -^-  'TT:::::^^^:^^^  around  whh  these 
flood  behind  it.     h-ach  station  ^  1^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^,.ges 

.,ood-.tacks.  each  ^^^^^^^^^^  ,,-,;„  stops  we  see.  moving 
carrying  h  away.    And  ^^^^^^  ^,,  peasants  of  Btflgana 

„,eiuly  behind  the  crowd  o'         ^  ^  ^^,^,  poverty,  the  same 
and  Servia  and  Austrian      o  and  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^^  ,^^j  ,5 

sackcloth  and  sheepskins,  the    an         P  ^^^^  ^^.^^  ^^^^  ^,3. 

Hack  bread.    They  prove  ^^^:X^^,,,  ,oves  and  which 
pect  between  the  Ua  kan  c-  --^  ^^.,^,,  ^ue  June  Xapo- 

do  not  always  love  her.    ^^X        one  December  he  fled  from 
leon  entered  in  triumph,  and  whence  o  ^^  ^^^^^^^  ^^_ 

>-  own  army,  leaving  --- ^  ^       ,1,  died  when  its  leaders 
hind;  ancUvhere  the  last  1  os^^  ^^^^^^^  ,,.^,   touched 

,,ere  executed.     XX  e  see  1   ko^^  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^  ,, 

hands  with  what  has  ^-j^  ^  ^^"^  ^^...^  ,,e  Terrible  fled  from 
.        Moscow  destroyed  a  repttbhc.  wl  e^e  ^^.^  ^_^^_^^^.  ^^^^^,^, 

an  idiot  saint,  where  ^----^  ^^^^at  kept  hts  cannons  and 
at  the  walls  in  vam,  ^^here  ^  e  ^^^^^^^^^^^  residences 

h,s  powder.    And  we  see  Gatdn       one  ^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^^  ^^.^,,, 
of  the  imperial  Family,  and  w he  ^^^^  ^^^.^^  ^,^^^^.^ 

,-hen.  almost  without  ^-"f .""  "  ,  ^  ,,,  ,,e  in  the  city  which 

in  a  plain.  1^-1^°'°"^  ,       °   '.^ters  of  the  Keva  and  named 
the  great  Tsar  Peter  built  m  the  w.tets 

aiter  himself.  •   „r„e,,__from  Charing  Cross  to 

St.  Petersburg  m  fitt>   boms, 


8 


ALL   THK    RUSSLAS 


A 


where  the  i^ange  chatii^es,  with  bed  and  hoard  of  the  l)cst,  with 
never  a  single  stop  of  more  than  h\e  niinntes,  and  such  punctual- 
ity that,  due  at  St.  Petersburg  at  J. 45,  the  station  clock  is  strik- 
ing three  as  we  drive  with  our  luggage  out  of  the  yard.  This 
journey  is  one  of  many  such  owed  by  travellers  to  the  enterprise 
which  makes  this  imposing  cross  upon  the  map — from  Calais 
to  Constantinople,  and  from  Gibraltar  to  Irkutsk. 

A  iroika  dashes  down  the  Xevski  Prospect,  the  horse  in  the 
shafts  trotting  desi)erately,  the  others  galloi)ing  on  either  side, 
their  heads  bent  outward.  Over  the  li(juscto|)s  rise  the  tne 
bulbous  domes,  like  inverted  balloons,  that  crowu  the  church  now 
standing  where  Alexander  II.  fell.  At  the  corner  of  the  great 
bazaar  is  a  little  voti\e  chapel  to  the  saint  wlio  cau^^ed  peo])le 
to  subscribe  so  liberally  to  rebuild  the  l)azaar  when  it  was  burned, 
and  as  they  pass,  the  well  lo -do  ci-o-^  iberii-ebes  and  the  [xior 
dotl  their  ca[)S.  All  tlie-e  are  inci  tni^niit  itv-.  Thex-  loi^k  as 
odd  a->  a  leatlief  botlrl   wniild  amid   >]i\er   and  en!   nla--.       1  hex* 


eU  r 


are  bus  oi  real    Kn^.^ia — M. 
iulind   (uie    to  luuii.      \\w    (inaric!" 


uirg   1:-  a   itM"e!L;n   eitw  an^ 


of   it    w 


( )\\  h 


be  at   1 


a 

'me   m 


ari->  or 


^.  it  -dam  <  ti' 


\-|]| 


'elei"  ilir  <  .real   hnili  ii  in  the  Xex'a 


wamp-.  a 


'a  v-.\\\i\'^\\  toward  Europe,"  m  AlLiar.*'!!'-  memor-- 
ahu  phrase;  and  tliat  is  precisely  what  it  remams.  For  a  !<  ng; 
nme  every  educated  Ivussian  wished  to  make  his  country  like 
western!  luirnpe:  he  resented  above  all  things  being  called  un- 
civilised, and  civilisation  meant  to  him  French  architecture  and 
English  manners.  St.  Petersburg  is  the  embodiment  of  this  wish. 
Provincial  Russians  still  hugely  admire  their  capital,  but  if  it  were 
to  be  rebuilt  now  it  would  resemble  Moscow  and  not  Milan.  The 
fashion  of  imitating  the  West  has  passed;  to-day  to  be  patriotic 
is  to  be  Russian,  and  so  far  from  following  the  mode  of  the  out- 
side world,  to  wait  confidently  till  the  outside  world  shall  learn 
tlim  tlu  Ivussian  mode  is  "better  and  shall  lay  aside  its  heathen- 
ism, ii:.  pciiliaiiieiiiarianism,  ii^  socialism,  the  licence  it   cnll-  lib- 


j;t^^.^me^-  *^^^ 


C.AiHhDKAL   Uh    ST.   ISAAC,   ST.   PETERSBURG. 


.  T,.  «  .  '*   4 


I 


If 


ST.    IM    riRSBl  KG  9 

eriw  an<:l  all  it-  ntluT  wickednesses,  and  walk  in  the  only  patli 
of  rL"liL;i(»n.->  irulli  and  >ocial  .^ccnril}-.  So  to  the  Russian,  St. 
I'eter-buri;'  is  no  loni^xn-  ]\ussia,  while  to  the  visitor  it  is  cosmo- 
politan and  therefore,  as  a  whole,  uninteresting. 

J  sav,  as  a  whole,  for  the  citv  of  Peter  the  Great  and  all  his 
successors  cannot  fail  to  contain  many  things  to  arrest  the  at- 
tention,     its  churches,  for  exam])le,  are  the  most  splendid  of 
anv  modern  churches  in  the  world — indeed  their  costliness  is  in 
curious  contrast  with  their  modernity.     In  other  countries  cathe- 
drals are  magnificent  through  the  faith  and  the  munilicence  of 
men  of  old  time;   here  our  contemporaries  have  set  their  creed 
in  gold  and  gems.    St.  Isaac's  Cathedral,  from  whose  magnificent 
dome  the  best  view  of  the  city  is  obtained,  whose  gloom  hides 
untold  wealth  upon  its  altars,  whose  colossal  steps  are  each  formed 
of  a  single  stone,  whose  four  sides  of  great  granite  monoliths  are 
unsurpassed,  and  whose  pillars  of  malachite  and  lapis  lazuli  are 
unapproached  elsewhere,  was  consecrated  the  year  in  which  I 
was  born.     A  semieircular  colonnade  leads  from  the  Nevski  to 
the  cathedral  of  our  wonder-working  Lady  of   Kazan,  where 
the  name  of  the  Almighty  blazes  in  diamonds,  where  half  a  ton 
of  silver  marks  an  outburst  of  Cossack  piety,  where  pearls  and 
sapphires  seem  to  have  no  value,  so  lavishly  are  they  strewed,  and 
it  dates  from  181 1.     Wealth  in  Russia  seems  to  pour  itself  to- 
ward the  habitation  and  the  decoration  of  religion.     Any  reason 
suf^ces  for  a  new  church.     Of  course,  where  Alexander  II.  fell 
a  superb  church  is  rising,  and  its  dazzling  group  of  blue  and 
green  and  white  and  gold  cupolas  is  visible  from  every  part  of 
the  city.     In  its  centre  are  the  very  paving-stones  upon  which 
he  fell,  and  the  soil  stained  with  his  blood.     Such  a  solemn  me- 
morial is  natural  and  inevitable,  but  a  fire  at  the  market,  and  a 
generous  popular  subscription  to  rebuild  it,  is  excuse  for  a  highly 
decorated  little  chapel  on  the  Nevski  itself,  before  which  innu- 
merable passers  stop  and  pray,  diverting  the  traffic  like  a  boul- 
der in  a  stream. 


y»^  ■■-■<>»  ->— ;  '«■  -;■  ''    4  * 


lO 


ALL    THi:    RUSSIAS 


One  clnirch  only,  nicatrrcly  endowed  in  compari-on  with  ihc 
rest,  is  pnik.umlly  rich  ni  a._M.ciali..n.  A  -S>n-c  like  a  iiee.lle  ri>es 
almost  from  the  Xeva,  and  at  i!~  base  are  llie  heavy  ea^enialcs 
where  the  water  la]-  .ireanly  l.-re^er  a;  in^enilaMe  dni.-e-n^ 
liehmd— einn-eh  ami  '.lie  .hin-e.ni-  alike  .ieuicale.i  l>'  M-  I'eler 
aiul  M.  J'aul.     The  eitadcl  i-  ni-n  an  i-l.e.,,!,  wliere  retcr''^  -en- 


crals  first  camped,  and  wliicli  he  iuiuui  g>.AKl  and  made  the  focus 
o!  ilu    aiv  to  be.      I  >-  n  it  i<  bis  cottage,  a  log-house  of  four 
roolil^,  nuw  caiainlh   protected  by  anotlKi   Anwluvc  built  over 
and  around  it^      1  inre  i^  1iis  dining-ruoiii,  iii>  rcnciHiuii-rooni,  his 
dark   liitk    bedroom,  the  very  chair  in  whicii  he  sat.   the  very 
objects  he  made.     You  see  nothing  of  the  prison  of  which  you 
have  heard  so  much,  except  its  walls  upon  the  river  and  its  dark 
water-gate,  for  as  you  drive  to  the  cathedral  through  the  land- 
gate  the  mndern  mint  is  before  you,  the  church  to  your  right, 
and  a  long  row  of  single-storey  barracks  to  your  left.    And  it  is 
lifeless  to  a^k  questions.     Very  few  people  know  what  passes 
wrdnann  ami  these  few  never  open  their  lips.     But  the  horror  has 
(kparted  from  liu-^  place,  for  nowadays  prisoners  of  State  are 
carried  tn   tk,r  f<  stress  of  bchiu^^eiburg,  also  an  island  m  the 
Xeva.  lnn^  luiw-  aw..).     ( '< vsicnrnin-  ild^  prison  absolute  secrecy 
prevails.     T  madn  inn  aannaintance  of  an  intimate  relation  of  the 
Govrnior,  and   lie  a^^nrol   nic  that    never  in   the  cW-c^t  family 
tad.  liad  hr  evn^  heard  a  syllable  concerning  it.    So  far  as  silence 
goes,  1!  1^  lUiWvA  a  hxini^  grave,  t1ie  ^tnnv  rephca  of  the  closed 
lips  ol  aumcraay.      lUn  ah  the  uorid  mav  Avi\v  ihr*a-]i  tlie  low 
reddsrick   iratn  <>!   the  eiladci  lu  the  (didiLdral  ui  M.    i'einr  ami 
St.  i  'ani,  and  gaze  through  its  narrow  gloom  upon  all  the  mould- 
ering flags  of  conquered  enemies  and  all  the  rusting  keys  of  sur- 
rendered towns.     These  are  but  poor  things,  however,  to  what 
lies  below  them — the  long  rows  of  square  white  marble  tombs, 
w^here.  each  muicr  the  same  gilt  cross  and  with  nothing  but  a 
name  to  mark  the  difference,  repose  forever  all  the  Tsars,  save 
one,  of  all  the  Russias,  since  Tsars  and  Russia  were. 


i 


I 


ST.    ri.TERSBrRH  ^3 

Of  this  long  line,  two  only  impress  their  personality  in  St 
Petersburg  to-day.     One.  the  first,  the  great  Peter    who  dtd 

cvcrvthing.  designol  everyUung,  foresaw  everyi.nn,.    The  otiuu 
,,/^„,^,,-,„t,„,  ,l,n.c  blood  Stained  the  .ucci  twenty  years 
a.o   unute.Mvc  b.cattse  of  the  conieni>  <,f  one  lutie  roon.     At 
,h;i!ern.ta,-c,   once   Ca.harn.e'.  pavHon,  but  since    1850  the 
„,,,,n„ceni  l.nne  of  the  uorUl-ianious  collection  ol  picture.,  you 
„;,:  .ec  Peter  n,  h.  habu  as  he  l.ved.     A  hie-..ze  wax  portrait 
„;„;,„,.  :,„n,.-  n,  h,.  own  chan-,  dres.ed  n,  the  very  clothes  he 
,.,,    ,,,.,„;„-  ,1K.  .word  gtven  to  h.nt  by  that  deposed  ruler 
,„-  ,,,i,„a  ..„,,  called  ■■  the  strong."  shows  you  his  great  height 
and  hi>  vigilant  black  eyes.     In  a  glass  case  is  the  yellow  charger 
p,  ,-ode  on  that    |ulv  ,lay  at  Pultava  when  he  founded  Russia 
„„„„  the  rums  of  Sweden,  and  beside  n,  almost  as  b.g-for  the 
„;.,U,eaten  handiwork  of  this  early  taxidermist  must  have  shrunk 
,„t,Uinv  since  ,t  bore  that  royal  loa.l-runs  his  favourite  yellow 
Lnind'    All  around  are  hundreds  of  his  instruments  and  lathes 
,„ul  tools,  an.l  the  things  those  strong  busy  hands  made  with 
them      And  an  attendant,  observing  with  pleased  anticipation 
vour',rcat  interest,  selects  front  a  group  of  walking-sttcks  his 
heavv'u-on  staff,  and  catches  it  as  it  falls  from  your  unready  grasp, 
and  then,  placing  a  tall  stick  upright  beside  you,  shows  you  the 
notch  at  Peter-s  height  a  foot  above  your  head. 

Since  Peter  the  Great  foresaw  so  many  things,  it  is  possible 
enough  that  when  he  crushed  the  aboriginal  frogs  of  the  ^eva 
„a,-shes  beneath  his  heel  he  foresaw  the  Island  Parks  too.  The 
Neva  with  its  broad,  slow,  silver  flood,  stealing  to  the  sea  by 
„,anv'wavs.  holds  netted  certain  flat  islands,  called  Kamenno.  and 
Ycla'oin.'in  its  watery  strands,  and  these  have  been  laid  out  and 
plant^l  with  an  art  which  worked  hand  in  hand  with  nature 
The  result  is  a  series  of  parks,  among  which  summer  villas,  called 
,atclu,s.  nestle  and  sandy  roads  wind  fancifully,  but  a  1  with  an 
artlessness  of  which  other  European  parks  have  lost  the  secret. 
But  with  what  a  prodigality  it  has  been  done,  these  smooth  roads, 


H 


Al.L   nil'.    RL'SSIAS 


ST.   PETERSBURG 


15 


these  solid  enibankincnls  to  protect   the  e(lKe>  of  the  lagoons, 
these  miles  of  silver  l.irclu-s  :uu\  Uv>  and  other  -racefnl  trees! 
Indeed,  this  is  a  reflection  that  rises  ohen  to  one's  lips  in  Russia, 
nieanin-  not  onlv  what  nioney^and  money  ha>  always  weltered 
forth—hut  what  tune,  u  hat  labour,  uhat  tenacious  clin-m-  to 
an  ideal  seen  afar  oft !     Myin-  along  the>e  ^oft  roads  come  the 
Russian  horses,  beautiful  black  stallions,  decked  with  white  foam, 
driven   with   outstretched  arms   by   a   coachman   of   Gargantuan 
size  in  his  wadded  gown  of  blue  cloth.     lie  calls  out  as  he  goes, 
he  leans  over  his  beasts,  his  narrow  waistbelt  of  eastern  silk  em- 
phasises his  enormous  girth,  the  rem.s.  half  of  leather  and  half 
of  blue   or  orange  webbing,   tlap   their   buckled   sides  upon   the 
horses'  tlanks— he  scorns  a  whip.     The  master  or  mistress  of  all 
this  sits  hrmly  back  in  the  diminutive  dark  blue  or  green  drosky 
—a  light  phaeton  with   tiny   front   wheel>— and  the  big  Orlotf 
plunges  forward,   his   wooden  arched   collar   frannng  his   i)roud 
head,  his  flowing  tail  streaming  out  behind— it  is  the  most  famil- 
iar sight  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  an  exhilarating  one.     Suddenly, 
''  H-r-r-r!  "  savs  the  driver,  the  hor>e  pulls  up  and  you  are  at  the 
Point,  with  one  of  the  loveliest  water-views  in  the  world  before 
you.     From  the  end  of  the  farthest  island  you  gaze  toward  Kron- 
stadt  down  the  Neva,  so  shallow  m  her  vast  width  that  only  a 
few  yachts  tlutter  across  her  breast,  for  the  steamers  may  not 
venture  out  of  a  dredged  channel  between  clo-e-set  buoys.     After 
the  green  shade  of  the  woods  and  the  little  eyedike  pools  looking 
out  of  their  seclusion,  the  open  of  blue  sky  seems  enormous,  the 
water  is  a  silver  tloor,  and  something  in  this  peep  into  the  infinite 
—it  may  be  the  tumble  of  opalescent  clouds  piled  upon  the  hori- 
zon  reminds  you  of  the  other  great  water-view  of  Europe,  down 

the  Sea  of  Marmora.    To  my  eye,  the  island  i)arks  of  Petersburg 

they  are  within  half  an  hour  of  the  centre  of  the  city — are 

the  most  beautiful  town  drive  in  ITirope. 

But  though  the  Xeva  brings  beauty,  it  brings  misery,  too. 
Along  its  ciuays  in  the  populous  parts  of  the  city  are  thousands 


of  cellar-dwellings,  where  the  poor  live.  When  a  certain  wind 
blows  back  from  the  sea  the  river  rises  and  floods  these  tene- 
ments, and  the  wretched  inhabitants  have  to  forsake  them  till 
the  water  subsides,  when  they  return  with  their  bits  of  furniture 
to  their  reeking  homes.  A  paternal  government,  how^ever, 
thouditfullv  causes  a  gun  to  be  flred  from  the  citadel  when  the 
river  is  rising,  and  its  boom  across  the  waters  warns  the  cellar- 
dwellers  to  escape.  St.  Petersburg,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  add, 
is  an  unhealthy  place,  damp  and  depressing,  and  in  summer,  when 
water  is  low  and  sewage  is  high,  the  canals  with  which  it  is  inter- 
sected smell  horribly.  Only  in  winter,  when  damp  and  other  evil 
things  are  frozen  solid,  is  it  bracing  and  clean,  and  even  then, 
you  must  remember,  every  window  in  every  house  is  hermetically 
sealed,  except  for  one  air-hole. 

The  little  room  I  have  spoken  of  as  conveying  the  impression 
of  the  second  personality  is  in  the  Winter  Palace.  Here  there 
is  much  to  see.  Beautiful  rooms,  halls  huge  and  white,  enamelled 
in  pink  or  white  marble,  so  delicate  as  to  be  lovely,  although 
an  imitation,  and  giving  a  sense  of  light  and  freshness  not  com- 
mon in  palaces.  Three  thousand  people  can  dance  in  the  W'inter 
Palace  at  one  time;  over  two  thousand  people,  after  a  ball,  can 
sup.  Never,  in  Europe,  can  there  be  a  scene  of  more  brilliance 
than  this — every  woman  in  extravagant  loveliness,  every  man 
in  uniform,  most  of  them  blazing  with  stars  and  medals,  of  which 
there  are  nowdiere  so  many  as  here.  But  after  endless  march- 
ings through  the  countless  chambers,  great  and  small,  from  the 
Throne  Room  to  the  private  apartments  of  visiting  royalties, 
which  seem  in  almost  all  the  palaces  of  continental  Europe  to 
have  been  designed  by  the  same  architect  and  furnished  by  the 
same  upholsterer,  the  official  with  you  knocks  at  a  door  and 
retires.  The  door  is  slowly  opened  by  an  old  man  with  many 
medals — a  grave,  melancholy  old  man.  He  is  the  keeper  of  the 
private  apartments  of  Alexander  H.,  which  have  been  sacredly 
preserved  exactly  as  he  left  them.     On  Sunday  morning,  March 


'I- 


,6  ALL   THK    RUSSL^S 

n    1881    the  Tsar  uas  writiuK  i»  '»«  room,  smokin-  a  cigarette. 
u'was  his  custom  to  inspect  some  regiment  on  Sunday  morn- 
ings, and  on  this  day  he  was  due  at  the  parade  of  the  mannes 
i„  the  Michael  Kidmg  School,     hue  times  had  the  .\.  nh.^t.  tned 
to  kill  him.  and  at  lea>t  twice  they  had  nearly  succeeded.      1  hey 
almost  hlew  up  the  Imperial  tran,,  and  they  actually  blew  up  the 
o-uard-room  and  di„n>g-roon,  of  the  Wmter  Palace  and  la.led 
of  their  chief  purpose  only  because  the  Imperial  dmner  had  heen 
arranged  f.,r  half  an  hotu'  later  than  u,.ual,  in  order  that  a  r„>al 
visitor.  Prince  Alexan.ler  of  Hesse,  nnght  he  present.      1  he  an 
was  once  more  full  of  terrorist  threats,  and  the  T>ar  s  son  and 
heir   and  his  most  truste.l  a.lviser.  begged  him  not  to  go  to  the 
inspection.     I'-ut  Alexander,  brave  and  obstinate  and  fatah>t.c. 
was  not  to  be  deterred.     1  le  laul  Ins  half-.smoked  cigarette  upon 
an  ash-trav.  picked  up  a  Uu.ely  folded  clean  handkerch.ef  from 
the  table.'slipped  his  little  s.lver-plated.  ivory-handled  revolver 
into  his  pocket,  buckled  on  his  sword  and  left  the  room.     .\n 
hour  later  he  was  carried  back,  fast  blee.lmg  to  death,  one  leg 
shattered  to  the  thigh,  the  other  to  the  knee,  and  placed  upon 
the  narrow  iron  bed  in  the  recess,  and  there  he  breathed  h,s  last. 
As  the  room  was.  so  it  remains.     The  lialf-smoked  cigarette 
lies'upon  the  ash-tray  in  a  glass  tube.     The  little  revolver  hes 
before  the  mirror.     Upon  each  of  the  tables  an.l  several  of  the 
chairs  is  a  looselv  folded  clean  handkerchief,  tor  it  was  the  1  sar  . 
wish  to  have  one  of  these  always  within  reach  of  his  hand      I  ere 
are  his  toilet  articles-a  plain  small  set  of  bottles  and  brushes 
from  a  rustv  morocco  folding  case,  evidently  bought  m  Lngland 
before  we  invented  the  m.Klern  luxurious  dressing-bag.       t  .s  all 
modest  bevond  belief,  and  the  brushes  are  half  w.,rn.     1  ns  was 
a  monarch  who  did  not  care  to  spend  any  of  his  incalculable 
wealth  upon  personal  luxuries.     The  wall.  .)f  the  room  are  cov- 
ered bv  bookcases,  all  <,uite  full  of  books  obviously  read.    Among 
them.'just  ])ehind  his  chair.  1  noticed  the  two  volumes  of  1  ru- 
monfs  La  France  Jnivc,  showing  signs  of  much  handling.     C)p- 


ST.    PETERSBURG 


17 


posite  the  foot  of  the  camp-bed  hangs  a  portrait,  rather  crudely 
painted,  of  a  little  daughter  who  died,  and  below  the  portrait, 
neatly  folded,  lie  the  last  frocks  she  wore,  which  her  father  kept 
always  by  him.    It  is  all  extraordinarily  affecting.     Had  he  lived, 
1  could  never  by  any  chance  have  thus  known  his  private  life 
and  looked  at  his  intimate  belongings.    1  should  have  seen  Alex- 
ander H.  in  uniform,  a  tall  figure,  a  composed,  not  intellectual 
face — seen  him  in  those  very  clothes  that  are  now  in  a  glass  case 
in  a  church — but  he  would  have  been  covered  with  his  great 
dignities,  cased  by  the  enormous  loneliness  of  his  position  as  an 
Emperor.    I  should  never  have  known  that  the  maroon-colored 
frock,  dating  from  the  time  when  children  were  most  hideously 
clad  of  all,  belonging  to  his  little  dead  daughter,  had  to  be  spread 
upon  a  table  in  the  rear  of  his  study  for  him  to  come  and  look 
at.  and  a  l)lue  frock,  too,  which  she  was  wearing  when  that  pict- 
ure flanging  above   it  was  painted.     I  should  not  have   seen 
the  short  iron  bed,  humbly  draped  in  some  Turkish  stufif.  neither 
rich  nor  costly,  on  which  behind  a  bit  of  archway  he  could  rest 
himself.    He  would  have  been  merely  the  great  remote  Tsar,  the 
Liberator  of  the  Serfs,  the  suppressor  of  Poland,  the  war-maker 
against  Turkey,  the  object  of  the  Nihilists'  bloodthirsty  pursuit. 
But  because  he  died  a  royal  martyr,  I  may  see  him  for  the  man 
he  was,  learn  his  little  personal  ways,  look  at  what  he  carried 
in  his  pockets,  know  how  simple  a  life  he  chose  to  live  inside 
his  outer  shell  of  impenetrable  pomp,  and  be  permitted  to  dis- 
cern how  he  worshipped  the  memory  of  his  little  dead  child. 

By  more  vivid  means  still,  however,  is  the  memory  of  Alex- 
ander H.  nourished  in  St.  Petersburg.  In  three  places  is  his 
actual  shed  blood  to  be  seen.  As  I  stood  by  his  bed,  my  own 
guide,  taking  advantage  of  the  old  oi^cial's  back  being  turned, 
lifted  the  coverlet  and  pointed  silently  to  the  broad  rusty  stain 
upon  the  faded  linen.  The  act  was  an  ofifence,  and  I  reproved 
him  sharply.  Again,  in  a  glass  case  by  the  altar  of  the  Cathedral 
of  the  Transfiguration  is  the  uniform  Alexander  wore  upon  the 


-  ■'I    ^*.   Av.  .P^  J  A  >  y»-  -  Z'- 


.  Miw.H,  w.im. 


--\  ->  ••,    'S  • 


ALL   THF,    KUSSL-^S 


Sl\    PKTERSBURG 


,  .1       .-..i.lnril  of  his  sworil  bears  a  wide 
day  of  his  death.  -"1  t^-  -^^    ^    "  ,,,,,  ,„,  .,„ 

^"'='^'  ''  ""^-    "      ,  'a  d  Id- have  been  preserved  and 

"P--^'-'^  f '^^7    :l ''i:  ;    t  Men^omd  Church  of  the 

-"  ™"  'T.',         e     th:         IHs  descendants  have  n.leed 
Resurrection,  bu.U  over  than,      i  \,nonv  Nvould  liave 

determined  that  here.  too.  the  populace,  a.  .\inon> 
it  do  in  Ronie,  shall  mark  the  blood  of  Lxsar. 

Far  more  than  churches  and  palaces  aiul  ^tres.s   die  htt^ 

daily  habits  of  a  people,  the  -""-"P'-^.        '^     ,' f,  ,  few 
U,ei;  character  and  predict  their  ^^^^^^  J^^^'^J^  ,,„,,,, 
commonplaces  of  the  Russian  cap.tal-tnrtcs 
the  notice  of  stately  chroniclers.  ^^^^,^^,,„,    The  gentle 

What  strikes  the  visitor    rsin  l^;^^Xn...n  police 

n.anners  of  ^^^  ^^^'^^^^^^  haled  from  their  beds, 
suggests  terror  to  the  W  csteiu    .i  ^^^^^^^ 

n.dnight  trials,  dungeons,  all    he  «  "      '    ^^^    '^  ^,^^  ^,,^,,,,, 
.Inma     The  Russian  street  police,  at  an>  latc.  arc  me 

"■     (  ne  of  them,  lo.^kmg  like  a  soUlier  because  of  his  mih- 
:niform,  sabre,  and,  at  night,  revolver,  s,an<ls  a.  everv  c,o.- 
g  at  every  hundred  yar.ls  in  the  busy  t   orougMar  .     1 

aiLts  the  traffic  like  his  London  brother  ,n  u. ,  k  im  e 
,  angry  when  a  vehicle  takes  ;;™;;f  ^^  J  '^  too  much 
along  with  the  driver  ^^^^:^-^^^^^^  .,,  ,„  ,,alking  by 
vodka,  the  policeman  pull>  him  off  ^"  '  - 

his  team.     He  directs  lost  wayfarers.  ^^  '^^'l-  '  \     ^     ^^  ,„, 
he  reads  Russian  ad.lresses  for  me  and  tel  s  "-  -  -^    ° 

\nd    as  -t  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  this  .'r.n),Av,./  uho  doe. 
And,  as  a  maivci  Western  world  hears 

n.ysterious  and  despotic  work  of  ^^^J^^^^^^^   ,,  ,,,,ot 

so  n.uch.     He  ^^^^;^^  ^^^^Z^^^^^^^  expel  you 

conceal  from  you  of  ^^^'J^^^^     "^^      ,,  ,,other  branch 
from  the  city  at  his  pleasure.    That  is  tlie  xn 
of  the  pohce,  whose  story  is  too  long  to  be  told  here. 


19 


The  next  thing  that  catches  the  eye  of  the  stranger  is  the 
universal  custom,  except  in  the  case  of  the  most  expensive  shops, 
of  decorating  the  outside  with  pictures  of  everything  sold  within. 
The  tailor's  shop  has  elaborate  pictures  of  coats  and  trousers, 
the  ironmonger  depicts  saws  and  pincers  and  hammers  and  locks, 
the  fruiterer  every  kind  of  fruit,  the  provision  merchant  bread 
and  sausages  and  cheese.  Why?  Partly,  of  course,  like  all  adver- 
tisements, to  catch  the  eye,  but  chiefly  because  the  majority 
of  potential  customers  cannot  read,  and  would  not  know  what 
the  shopkeeper  offered  if  he  did  not  tell  them  pictorially.  This 
is  a  trifle,  but  it  is  a  significant  one. 

The  costliness  of  Russian  life  is  also  a  curious  revelation.  Rus- 
.sia  contains  probably  a  larger  proportion  of  very  poor  people 
than  any  country  except  China,  yet  St.  Petersburg  is  the  most  ex- 
pensive city  I  have  ever  visited.  To  begin  with,  every  house  and 
hotel  contains  a  swarm  of  servants,  and  each  one  expects  a  tip. 
The  man  who  takes  your  hat  and  coat  at  a  private  house  thinks 
fivcpence  little  enough;  if  you  give  half-a-crown  to  the  attendant 
who  ])erf()rms  the  same  modest  service  for  you  at  a  great  ofhcial's 
he  shows  no  sign  of  excessive  gratitude.  The  tips  of  a  wealthy 
Russian  to  a  waiter  at  a  good  restaurant  are  enormous.  At  the 
Hotel  d'Europe,  where  I  made  the  mistake  of  stopping  on  my 
first  visit,  a  room  on  the  third  fioor  costs  thirteen  shillings  a  day, 
and  a  closed  carnage  to  take  you  to  dinner  ten  minutes'  drive 
away  cannot  be  had  for  less  than  twenty-six  shillings.  Similarly 
you  find  sixpence  charged  on  the  bill  for  a  few  sheets  of  hotel 
note-paper  of  the  cheapest  kind,  and  a  bath  costs  three-and-six- 
pence.  A  fortune  awaits  the  man  who  will  "  run  "  a  hotel  in  St. 
Petersburg  on  modern  lines,  where,  if  you  pay  high,  at  least  you 
will  get  comfort  and  attention,  without  miserable  extortions. 
Aleanwhile,  the  home-like  old  Hotel  de  France  is  where  you 
find  tout  Pctcrslwuyo, 

One  expects  to  find  Russia  overrun  with  soldiers,  her  capital 
like   Berlin  for  its  masses  of  troops,  but  more  so.     Yet  if  you 


L. 


.mm'^m      '•    i%»*" 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 

*°  ,  .     .  „„  the  Embankment  to  the 

ehance  to  .ee  the  .ua,.a  m.^^^^^^ 

Bank  of  l-glar,a.  ami  a  t.-        ^  ^^^  ^^^^^^^  ^^^,^,,^,,.^  ^,„,  ,i.y  n, 
James's  Street,  yon  have  ,h..m1   .   -^^^^^^^  ^^^^  i„„,„„erahle  otheers 

London  than  in  Si.  ''^■'^■''7;";-      .,,„„,,^  ,,,  uncommon  U^A^n.. 

about,bmthcpnvate>'      -    _'^;^^,^^.^ 

Ana  at  in-s.  yon  take  fo    >      -^  ^   ^^^^,  ^,^^^^^^,^  ,, ,,,  ,  „n,- 

ofthekn.l.     l'---"-'^-     Vu'.^K-MK-----"'-'''"^ 
form.     rn,tnrm,  m  i;u-i.  >.^  II  ;  ._^  ,^^.  ^^  j,.,„  ,iv,i,an  .> 

'ina  ui-n^^^i''^^^^^'  ^'"''  '  ,.  •  1  1  from  the  statioivHia:^u-i  ^^ 
the  :.^n,.  .hen  --•-"  '-' ^  jj  S'.e  raUways;  then  all 
,he  v>uKlo^v-eleane^.  who  ^^^'  ^  j      and  night  out- 

,he  </z.nnl...  or  porters  .ho  do    o  ce  d    Y      Y      ^^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^,^^ 

side  every  house;  ^'^"^  ^  ^^  ^  ";;  Uen  for  a  soUher  by  the 
-eet-cleaners.  ^^^:-^::,,r  huge  class,  or  series  o 
ignorant  visitor.    But  there  is  ^^^^.j.   .  j^^^  ,^3 

clsses,  .lach  wears  -^-^-.^^r^.^^essing  one.  does  not 
uniform,  but  is  the  only  e  ass  .1       ^P  ^^^^^^  ^  ^^.,.^^^y 

--■'^'•>  -^ '-^  '  ^^7^'ts  ll  'low-  to  the  youngsters  as 
^"^'^-"'  :,,.ai  every  boy  at  ^  l^;^"  ,„te  of  a  teehnieal  sehool 
,,„^,asy...-valkmg-stKk.    Lv     Y .  ^^^_,^^,  ,,,, 

__....u:,u   .n.n.eers,  eml  ^"S-'f^'  ,.,,,,,,,,  u.e  rest 

,,.,,. ,,,.M..eneranvexere...- 

oi  in.,  m-o.    Every  .u  ,..- .  "^  =^"     .    ^    ,^,.  ,,^,  ,,e„.to-do  popula- 
.;,,e  .n.h  :u,  a.tumshmg  1-°^°™^,,,,,^,^,   ;,  ;,  easv  to  under- 

-■-' ;\-';:;;:"r      .erhap.  a. a.,  o,.  two-knows 

^-">--"-''''^^'^^,-,.i  they  mean.      \  /a  vaa.  tmu'~  T  bnx  e 

a^kaaanM,aaacalu.---^^^^_^,^,^^.,^.^^^,  ,„„•-„,     ,,„  tu 
denutca.anaiu.c.-nfe.-.  ;  ^_^^^^^..^^,^.,,,,,,.^^^ 

the  \vcarer^  the)  mcau 


ca 

u 
H 

LU 

a. 
H 

< 
tu 

o 
>- 

H 

CO 


UJ 


^.-m^   n.^iiii'**- 


ST.    IM;1  I^RSBURC; 


21 


of  the  cai).  the  excuse  for  a  more  commaiKhnc:  accent.  And  to 
the  foreii^nier  they  mean  two  things:  first,  an  officialdom  which 
both  in(hcates  and  explains  so  great  a  lack  of  private  initiative; 
and  second,  a  ceaseless  source  of  embarrassment,  from  the  dan- 
o-er  of  exhibitini;-  your  railway  ticket  to  a  major-general,  or  mak- 
in<'-  vorn-  most  deferential  bow  to  the  guard. 

St.  I  Petersburg  is  the  only  city  1  have  seen  apparently  without 
such  a  thing  as  a  place  where  alcoholic  drinks  alone  are  sold. 
]n  a  restaurant  you  can  order  a  glass  of  beer  or  of  vodka,  but  the 
"  bar  "  or  the  public-house  or  the  American  '*  saloon  "  is  non- 
existent.    The  onlv  exception  I  saw  was  an  *'  automatic  buffet  " 
where  you  get  any  drink  on  the  penny-in-the-slot  principle.     It 
was  enormously  popular,  but  it  also  sold  excellent  food  automati- 
cally, and  called  itself  "  Ouisisana.''     (I  puzzled  over  this  name 
a  lone-  time  until  it  occurred  to  me  to  divide  it  into  three  Italian 
words.)    In  a  shop,  however,  where  cigarettes  and  liquors  are  sold 
I   have  several  times  seen  poor  children  come  with  an  empty 
bottle,  place  a  few^  coppers  on  the  counter  and  take  vodka  home. 
The  consumption  of  alcohol  in  Russia  is  comparatively  small  per 
head,  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  drunkenness — much  more  in 
public  than  in  other  countries.    The  Russian  is  by  nature  a  genial 
and  company-loving  man,  and  on  religious  holidays  and  public 
fetes  these  virtues  are  his  undoing.     The  well-to-do  Russian  has 
a  peculiar  passion  in  connection  with  his  meals — namely,  to  hear 
the  music  of  a  huge  "  orchestrion  "  or  mechanical  organ,  with 
drums,  cymbals,  and  every  imaginable  instrument.      Xo  self-re- 
specting restaurant  is  without  one  of  these  monstrous  and  costly 
erections,  wound  by  hand  or  moved  by  electricity,  and  they  play 
with  the  briefest  intermissions  the  whole  day.     With  one  excep- 
tion, all  that  I  heard  needed  tuning,  and  dinner — even  when  it 
is  so  excellent  as  Russian  food  in  good  restaurants  always  is — 
under  such  conditions  is  apt  to  be  indigestible. 

Two  more  quaint  little  details.      Nobody   in   Russia  w^ars 
woollen  underclothing — always  linen  or  cotton.     ^Moreover,  the 


M  L    THK    RUSSIAS 

1  ■  1      ..nJ  tin-  iiccc-Mlv  (it  the  <lnvci.     At  UK  hiuli 
the  vehicle,  and  the  neec       .  ^^  ^_^^^^ 

Several  muune,  ivieH-urt;  the  pulu-e  n.veiUea  a 

to  a  live  minutes   (Irue.     IiiM.i<.iei.        ^,  ,.,,,   l,ui 

tlif-  ilnver^  reiuK  lateil  it.  ami  ,iiu.  .  >- 

-n      --.,--/.,7..,lnneha^van<iui^heaauloerac>. 

1         1  1  >+t<-.i-  nt'   i\\  (K^n     l'^   .111 '11^    I'll-  1 

""t;"  „J:i V  .....„„„.- .,.. I1.UK-.  - 

-J< ' - >;'•,-:;,';•;,:;;:!';;";■:;;::':;■"; 

Voltaire  1"  >a.y,       I  Uci    ^x^i 


canned  c\'cn 


\\:\c\--\^\\Vl 


the 


1  "      VmI   in  mmc  mih.  Ian   in  viin  laai.  ! 

:":::, v»: ;: --,.,....... -•■■'"-;:'■',;;;:,::;: 

•   •  i.\  <.r\   site  st'cni-  t<'  1';^^  e  Itccai  ua'  oi  1  ^ 

Ld  of  the   Kns.a  of  to-aav  to  have  been  an.K-ipate.ll.     1       . 

StUl.  in  all  youv  wonder  at  h.  foresight  ""''.-;•;, ^,,„,,,„ 
,,,Hve,<>n,inSt.l>etei>lnir,w,tuuitc..nii.t      1     .o.     ^^^^ 

that  he  made  one  mistake-m  huildmo-  the  -'     '       "^   ^^'^^  ^,^ 
do.-  toward  luiropc  should  have  been  m  another  pait 
great  Russian  wall 


f1 


r 


..-n 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    TWO    MOSCOWS,    AND    A    FEW    REFLECTIONS 

ST.  PETERSBURG  might  be  anywhere,  and  without  turn- 
ing one's  self  into  a  guide-book  (precisely  what  I  wish 
to  avoid)  there  is  hardly  anything  in  it  to  describe.  My  impres- 
sions of  it  have  only 
covered  a  few  pages; 
but  it  would  be  easy 
to  write  a  volume 
about  INIoscow.  Here 
is  Russia  indeed — - 
every  side  of  her  faith- 
fully represented.  The 
mairnificcnt  white  rail- 
wa\  station,  with 
"  God  save  the  Tsar  " 
in  |)ermanent  gas-let- 
ters over  the  portal,  is 
where  tlu'  Great  Si- 
berian train  starts 
fur  Vladnostok  and 
Port  Arthur.  Tliese 
s  t  r  a  n  u' e,     dark  -  rol  )ed 


if',   t  rJ 


Gate  .iiul  Chapel  of  the  Old  City,  Moscow. 


nuai.  fitting  by  them.^elvcs  at  the  bourse,  tur1)ane(l  or  fnr-hatted, 
are  Ivussian  stibjects  from  Central  Asia.  Russia  is  a  great  man- 
ufacttuang  cotnUr\-  now:  Moscow  is  one  of  the  manufacturing 
cities  of  the  world.  Napoleon  looms  large  in  Russian  history: 
from  those  low  hills  a  few  miles  away  he  looked  down  upon  the 
splendid  prey  he  was  about  to  seize;  through  this  gate  he  entered 

23 


^^  ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 

the  ctadel;  in  that  church  h,s  horses  .crc  s.ahlca.    A  Romanoff 
Tsar  rules  Russia;  th.s  .  the  house  .here  the  Urst  Ron^no      o 
become  a  Tsar  Hved,  as  a  sunple  seigneur;  and  here  ar    the  tontb 
ai  the  Rnr,ks  and  Ron.anoffs  who  ruled  when  St.  l-eterslnng 

Rnssia  is  -I  theocracy;    -Moscow  is  the  holy  city. 
was  a  swamp.    Russia  is  a  tntocui  .  .  r. „..;.,  of 

consecrated  and  consecrating.  Under  whatever  aspee  Ku  la  of 
to-day  presents  herself  to  you,  m  Moscow  you  may  hnd  it  em- 
boS,  for  Russia  sprang  from  Moscow  and  the  Dukes  of  Mus- 
covy  laid  her  foundation-stones. 

Since  the  Coronation  of  .894  everybody  has  read  of  the  won- 
derful churches  of  Moscow,  of  its  brilliant  colouring,  of  Us  his- 
toric interest,  of  the  piety  of  its  people.    Yet  1  cannot  refrain  fro, 
dwelling  for  a  moment  on  this,  for  Moscow  produces  a  tmu    e 
and  an  meffaceable  impression.    There  is  n<,  cuy  m  the  w^oild  Ik 
I      The  imperial  City  in  the  centre  of  feking.  seen  from  the 
.valls  where  Marco  Polo's  instruments  stood  un„l  the  (.erman 
purloined  them,  has  something  of  n^  hUic  and  green  and  go  d. 
hs  fantastic  architecture  recall^  the  eave.^  and  the  -  dMow    i. 
of  Korea.      It,,  narrow    lui^lern   street,  renmul  one  ..f  Sarajoo. 
h,  hnlv  nnagcs.  incrallv  mnnnuTabK-.  and  the  p...u~  pa--''-.  ^-1^'''- 
oratelv   bowing  and   en..ng   hnn..W   a.ain   and   a. a,n..,.ge. 

Lonrdesatpilgrnnagc.nne.     h.  Mree,H--l -u  h  o,I      . -ton 

as  In..-  as  vour  list,  over  winch  the  .In^^cbk.e.  rat.le  .and  bang  till 
vourWare  deaf  and  your  throat  .  ..re,  brn,g  back  to  nuanorv 

Belgrad.  the  wor.t-paved  town  m  the  world,  where  von  may  Mtn 
well  fracture  your  skull  in  a  drive  down  the  ni  un  street  m  a  c  ,  .cd 
carnage.     Rut  as  a  whole  .Moscow  is  like  nothing  but  Mo^eow- 
a  city"apart.  exempt  from  comparison,  bevond  description. 

-^  .     ,      f  T)       •     i,n-  n  T^nnnl'itioti  of  a  million. 

The  second  capital  of  Russia  ha.  a  population 

it  is  the  commercial  centre,  and  the  greatest  Russian  -a-^^-^^ 
,.,  town,  and  it  iKis  four  hundixd  and  tntv  cluird^s:  inu  to    1^ 

viler  Moscow  is  the  Kremlin,  and  the  Kremlin  is  Moscow,  lie 
remaininc,  forty-nme  fiftieths  of  the  city  do  not  ---^^-  ^^^^ 
learned  l^ve  not  yet  agreed  what  "  Kremlin      n.eans-probabh 


THE    TWO    MOSCOWS 


25 


fortress,  or  Acropolis,  or  central  official  quarter,  for  many  other 
towns  have  one.  Actually  it  is  an  isosceles  triangle,  one  side  rest- 
ing upon  the  river  Moskva,  and  all  three  marked  by  enormous 
pyramidal  walls  of  pale  pink  brick,  broken  at  intervals  by  square 
watch-towers,  and  pierced  by  live  gates.  One  of  these  leads  from 
the  river— a  prison  or  secret  gate— and  everybody  who  passes 
under  another,  the  Gate  of  the  Redeemer,  so  called  from  the 
miracle-working  portrait  over  it,  must  remove  his  hat.    The  best 


A  Gate  of  the  OLi  City,  Moscow. 


view  is  from  the  Kamennv  Bridge,  and  is  shown  in  my  photo- 
graph.    Without   colour,   however,  the   Kremlin  loses  half  its 

charm. 

A  Russian  wit  has  said  that  Moscow  is  remarkable  for  two 
things— a  cannon  which  has  never  been  bred,  and  a  bell  which 
has  never  been  tolled.  And  these  are  perhaps  the  two  most 
striking  single  objects.  On  the  way  through  the  Kremlin,  you 
pass  in  the  arsenal  yard  an  enormous  quantity  of  l)ronze  cannon, 


ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 


THE   TWO    MOSCOWS 


27 


26 

,  •  .     '^,^^^.>ri1l<T  alxivc  tlieiii  is  the  "  Isar 

neatly  disposed  m  groups,     loucnn,  a.  .  ,  ^.,  ,,.  „reen 

Cannon  -  a  huge  and  highly  .lecorated  p.cce  c.f  bnght  .rccu 
bro     e   weio-hiu;  fortv  tons,  wuh  a  l..n-e  of  e,ghtecn  uu-hes,  eas 
•        So      i:.s  .KTeh-  dcconunc.  for  a  hatful  of  powder  woul 
1  vlt  to  bus.     A  hundred  yards  farther  on  is  a  colossal  bell  on 
t^e  1  nd   weighu,g  .00  tons.    Uh.le  h  was  being  ra.sed  to    he 
v^r  >       ;,7  i— s  broken,  and  the  eleven-ton  p.cce  kncKked 
toutr  ui  i/.v  ^^^^^.^^^,  ,^,^  ^,  ,,  „^.nihcant 

r,:  :-:::.:■  .^:-.--.-< ^■-'-■' "r";  ,rI::.: 
ZL.^An,  l..ly  :^u'^  ^'^^^^^  ^'^^^^^^^-  ,n  a  glas.  frauK.  s  a 
;    ss  tablet  telhngth.pn, nd. on.     ^Vc  stopped  to  re  dt- 

,  ,,,tv  of  four.  UK-huln,,  a  ,n,d.-^wlu.n  n.tan.lv  a  ..U,  ■ 

,     ,,,;,H-..e.nKn.onetan.l.KU-p,yon,cuMnson,ove.,.         Ul 

cang.   .uthesn-eetau.   notpcrnnu.dn,    Kn..a.        '^;       '^ 
on;e,an,gn,,ran.n.n,.to...ea,,..ve..cnnn,o,-.. 

„.,   nn.lc.-tana,  inn    tlK.   uH.lcm    Ull~   H^  Movy  u    -.^    a^^^^^^ 

somc.hnr^  p.a.lu,l>    a  .     ,.^  ^.„  ^f  U,,--an  vuuaacs. 

a  ,;il,lci  ..ct  up  Ml  a  puMir  place  to  tell  ol  im     ■ 

•       f         .,>  r^.lnlent  of  X.il'O  eons -iL',.i-^if"   '•'"'■"  <  ■ 
Moscowi^.  "f''>u>e,  redolent  01  .     ,  m,i1.    from 

Three  hours'  dr.ve  from  the  city  arc  the  bpaiic.N  !!..!>,  bom 
t  1  "  ta,..l  .us  first  view  of  the  splendid  pillage  tn,a  awatt  d 
which  In  oDta  Moscow  eighty-seven  years  ago  looked 

his  impatient  legions.    If  Moscow  eig.>  Z,,!  n.  ii  was  with 

P-.  „,  Lse  hills  as  it  looks  to-day.  h.s  heart.  ^^^^^^^^^  ^, 

i  hnvo  heit  biHi      Thnm-h  tiu    1  loitski  Uate  oi 

tiu-  Krcniliii  br  rnterecl  next  clay.     \^  ^^'^-^  ^'--^    '  ■  ,^ 

•     i,p.-   ...ir  In  t1ii<  little  iKiU-.Tiy  tMx^aU^  .\losco^v 
1         •      •       \\-  thi.  Ked   Siairca-e  he  KM   hi^  <^iiiuiiii,^ 

.    ,     ,u,  iMaee      In  this  Chureh  m  tlic  Savunu  th.   inia... 

into  the  I  alact.  c-hn^tian  niartvr 

;:t:r.;::t;::r^:;*;:;.;:a.*.-..^ - 

row  cemetery  of  hi-  troops. 


The  whole  Kremlin  is  wonderfully  picturesciue.  Its  broad 
castellated  brick  walls  are  pierced  by  deep  arched  gateways  and 
crowned  bv  cpiamt  towers  whose  red  sides  and  green  tiled  roofs 
emerge  from  masses  of  foliage.  High  above  all  is  the  tower  of 
Ivan  \-eliki  (an  Englishman,  by  name  John  Yill.ers).  from  which 
the  whole  citv  is  spread  out  before  you  like  the  illuminated  page 
c,f  some  old  missal.     Here  is  a  glimpse  of  the  garden  of  a  mon- 


Wmieii  m  !li.-  Sunday   W.uket.  Moscow. 


astery  vAu.n  once  boasted  16.000  servants,  pretty  red  balconies 
,,„„,■„.  ,,„„„1  a  =qnarc  of  embowered  walks.  A  few  steps  away  is 
the  never-to-be-forgotten  Callidral  oi  the  Ascnmption,  n,  M.ai^e 
as  its  orioinal  wa^  Innlt  mx  centuries  ago,  dazzling  w,th  gold, 
frescoe.l  from  door  to  cupola,  claiming  upon  its  highest  altar  a 
piece  of  the  Saviour's  robe,  the  spot  where  a  man  crowns  himsell 
Tsar  of  Ml  the  Ku=sias.  and.  in  the  eyes  and  in  the  profoundest 


1 


1H1-:   TWO    MOSCOWS 


-9 


ALL   TH1-.    RUSSL^S 


28 

interest,  an.l  he  nu,^t  ^^^^^  ,-,ii,cuuns. 

^ly  object  he  n'.^.  ^^^_^^.,,^^^.  ^^,,,  ^,„,„,h,,.  .^enes, 

and  place,   but    »  ;^';'^  ,^,^  ^,„.,  „,„„„,.  uhu-h  00  to 

the  "-'--'--"^-  '^'^-^r  ;"',:'"     ,  ,-,,„„  .hK-h  the  Ku^.a  oi  to- 

morrow  nu.)  be  mfenu  .  ^^^^^^^  navollcrs. 

Moscow  to  the   ^;f  ;;;;;';;       ;,,,  L,.,   wCbreaa  people, 

To   most  people,   cxcn  ,- .,  „u-turesaue  and  nivs- 

Moscow  is  only  the  nuanu  oUl  capual,  -"^   :^^^,.^.  ,,,^;,,. 

terunts  fauh-the     lol>  ..^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^.,,  „^  ,Ve.t- 

It  is  this,  but  .t  IS  al^o  ..unKthnv        >  _  ^^^^^,^^^. 

„,,^v„Ha,,.,,,->p.;.;;"y;;;;-^  

■•'■'•■^■^''■>  ''^-"  ■""•-  '    -,     .,    ,,^.  ,;^i,  of  nnlion^.     W  c  have  y.a.uol 
„,,cd  sonic  day  i>'  :'.iu.  '    -<   '<'i^  ...lon-spi""'""-  ''"''= 

.„  Old  MOSCOW.  U.   New  MOSCOW  n^s  ^  ^^    ;;  .^,,.^^,.„„,,y 
,.|,.l,  have  paid  seventy  or  -g^  t    1  "   ^     -^  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^,^^,^ 

_a  startlu,,  jtiuaposttton,  but  the  on    tl  ^^^  ^ 

the  other.     !•>  ..uu,factnrc.  as  we     as  .n^.  .^^^.^^ 

,„,hio„.  ^'o--^\'^:::^^;;:i^Cn'-^^^^  only  Chinese  in 
,i,e  walls,  known  as  the     Chinese  1  .^^^^^  ^^^^^ 

.,    ,„,  ,  few  tea  merchants-.s  P-^«  ;^;;    ^^  ,,„„.^..,g  buyers 
^,„.,  ,.,,,,    The  streets  hum  w,th  tl-^eP  ', ^.^^^^^  ^„^j 

,1  ^  tTt-,-     1  iu>'o  IS  croweic I  N  1   ■ ' 
...  I     ,.V,r^       ,\t   ,,,,n5i  tha-  I  M  '-'ns.,C  IS  e  ,•,-,,,.,,, 

"■'"  "^'  ,     ,,     ,,-   ,„,r!u.n  nf  Ihcm  ^pcakmi;  C.via.a., 

„KTchani..  a  uar.arkauu;  ,.■■,"'•■  .,-„.,,  ,aces  an.l  bead- 

uith  a  >pvnikhn- nt  1  hn.csc,  ic  ,,,  v.au/i  uitb  Napo- 

...     I      ,,.,,       WhiMi  vmu  'Invv  ..111  U)  Maa  > 

■^""•"'""      "     :      h,'l    uulM.lc    a.allv.l.n,.na..crv,bnlhaniui 
,eonsghoston.hclnl.^uut.uu         ^^^^^        ^       ^^^_^^_^^,^^^^^.,,^.. 

colour,  quaint  m  a,vh„e.-nn-c.  'V'    '';'-;'  .,^,,.„,,  ,„h  ln„e 

^^^•^^"  >■""  ";'  ^'^       -^-  X      n    im.l  -Moscow,  at  .h-ance^  varvm, 
disfiguring  chnuneys.     All  ai.ni.i.i 


■     1  1  ,.  tr-nn    -ire  <^reat  spinning  and  weaving 

frnm  two  to  SIX  liours  b\   tr.iin.  art  r,ieai.  -i  ,-, 

c   non-pnnting  mills.    Spniiimg  m  Russia  has  advanced  w. 
'     omshin..  stri.les;    In  t886  there  were  already  over  two  mil Ium. 


Tl,-  CMwdrM  ..i  ^t    baV.l  tl,e  Bc,ir>.,ea,  .\\oscow-Sixteenth  C.ntuw. 

pl-H-os*     From  i.xSo  to  1889  the  .anput  of  the  cotton  nianu- 
factinin.-  in,hi<trv  ro.e  from  240  to  4S7  millions  of  roubles.    Since 

*  V„  .T,ua,  s.,.U:,VK.,u  far  .8,3.  ..-.-  latest  I  can  find    says:    '•  A.  «he  Present  t™e 
„,   „„„,...  „,  .pin,„es  in  Russia  may  be  estimated  a,  6.000^000.  ..nd  the 
lo.,ms  at  2ao.ooo,  ,:.k,n«  300  .lays  per  annum  of  ten  workmg  hours. 


I ««  .*  ^     «  ..*4!#     JB   .*    •    *      -      • 


L.-^  #••*»  <-.f>"» -«••••♦ -• 


30 


ALL    Till      RLSSIAS 


then  i1ic  pnuhiction  lias  steadiK  ri^cn.  tlmu-]^  imt  of  course  at 
thi.sastoni>liiii-ratc.  The  dcniaial  tor  ccltnii  -..<  .(1m>  practically 
unlimilcd  for  the  entifc  population  of  Rn^<ia  wears  n.  while  new 
markets  in  C"eiural  A^ia  and  the  h'ar  l-.a^t  are  openin--  rapidly. 
'Jdie.se  Lastern  markets  are  due  to  tlie  .sa^aci()U^  character  of 
Russian  foreign  policy,  but  the  .sup|)ly  has  of  course  ^^rown  up 
within  the  industrial  paradise  of  an  absolutely  pi-ohibitive  taritt. 

Not  k^ng  ago  in  Moscow  there  were  luigli.sh  foremen  in  most 
mills.  Xow  almost  all  of  these  are  gone,  ddiey  were  the  objects  of 
f>-reat  iealousv,  and  their  nationalitv  had  this  disadxantage,  that 
when  trouble  arose  with  the  workmen,  the  immediate  object  of  the 
hostility  of  the  latter  was  their  direct  chiet,  and  the  situation  be- 
came much  more  complicated  if  he  happened  to  1)e  a  foreigner. 
Such  troubles  are  b\-  no  means  i-are.  and  in  one  ot  them  an  haig- 
lishman  was  killed  a  few  _\ear-  ago.  Indeed,  among  the  -ubjects 
of  official  consideration  in  l\ii--ia  to-da_\'  the  familiar  miu'  oi  the 
relatioiLs  of  capital  and  iaJjoair  is  a^.-umniL;  an  e\er  liable  perplcx- 
111-.  not  t"  -a\  disfjiiictiiiL;',  a-peot.  Frr)ni  tlu'  niill^owncr^^'  point 
of  \- lew  the  iiio-t  difhcni!  ]'!■<  'bUan,  however,  is  thai  » •!  inrl.    Mnli- 


erto  wo(  Mi  ha^  1  ireii  c!Mel!\ 


■  t  ■( 


'III  its  ])ncv 


It  !\\  nig  pro  111  bi- 


\\\i\  \iriad\  u  costs  £3  or  more  tor  four  tons,  and  it  does  not 
go  hah  a.s  far  as  good  coal.  English  coal  is  costly,  coal  from  the 
Donetz  district  in  the  south  has  to  l)ear  800  miles  of  railway  trans- 
j)ort,  and  naphtha  residues,  which  are  so  largely  employed  for  all 
kinds  of  steam -raising,  are  rising  steadily  in  price.  Official  com- 
fort is  gi.ii!  i*\  I  lie  statement  that  coal  will  ])rol)ably  be  found 
uiak'i'  (he  AloL-cow  di-siricl  iL-l-1i,  but  lucanw  hilc  the  cost  of  fuci, 
and  t  lierefore  of  p<  )wer,  Ntaiid-  in  t lie  w  a\'  ( >f  nian\'  a  new  iii(hi-tria1 
enterprise. 

One  other  matter  in  cnnneclion  with  cotton  in  Rii-sia  de.^erx-es 
mention.  Most  of  tlie  raw  material  come-  from  Americ:i.  and 
a  considerable  cjuantit}  from  I\g\pt.  Rut  m  Tnrke-tan.  Russia 
has  come  into  possession  of  a  cotton-growing  country  of  great 
possibilities.     Last  year,  a  Moscow  merchant  told  me,  350,000 


711 L    lAVO    MOSCOWS  31 

American  bales  came  from  there,  and  this,  it  must  be  remembered, 
is  favoured  b\'  escaping-  the  heaxw  dutv  which  foreign  cotton  lias 
to  pay.  An  official  publication  l)efore  me  contains  this  state- 
ment: "  In  the  near  future  [)robably  the  greater  part  of  the  Rus- 
sian cotton  industry  will  be  supplied  with  native  raw  material." 
Rut  as  all  the  cotton  of  Turkestan  is  dependent  upon  irrigation, 
and  ca])ital  is  scarce  there,  the  Moscow  spinners  do  not  yet  share 


-j«t5  )»»*'' 


The  Kremlin,  Moscow,  from  the  Kamennv  Bridge. 


this  «s])iiniistic  liope.  Meanwhile,  liere  is  a  little  story,  winch 
mav  interest  Lancashire.  A  prominent  and  wcaltliy  Moscow- 
producer  of  cotton  goods  is  exhibiting,  with  ostensible  indigna- 
tion, but  really  with  much  natural  pride,  a  piece  bearing  an  exact 
imitation  of  his  own  trade  mark.  His  name  is  slightly  altered, 
but  the  rest,  including  his  many  medals  from  exhibitions,  with  his 
name  correctly  spelled  upon  them,  is  there.    This  piece  was  man- 


f 


\L. 


}i 


i; 


1 


'f 


32  ALL   llli:    RUSSL^S 

ufacturcd  in  England  and  sent  to  him  by  his  a-cnt  in  I'ersia.    So, 
at  least,  everybody  says.     1  did  not  succeed  ni  -eein-  it. 

ddiei-e  is  nothm-  -o  nitere-tm-  ni  KuxMa  at  tlii>  nionient  as 
the  nulu>trial  development  uliuii  lia^  ah.ady  -one  so  far.  and 
is  uitlH  nil  d<  .uhl  goiii-  so  niiK-li  larihvr.  i  1  i^  a  ni.  aiimtous  de- 
vd-pmeiii-  !<u-ia,  w.ili  irreat  airirrc-'ition^  oi  capital  m  nnddie- 
cla..  hauuN  ahai-Mdc  an  inip.u.Ti^licd  nobility;  Ku^^ia.  uuii  livr 
fuA'l-.  like  onr  own.  depleted  of  laboni',  wiiidi  lia^  L;une  to  the 
fact^  iH-  an!  the  towns;  Russia,  with  the  character  of  her  masses, 
upon  whom  alone  rests  the  mighty  and  complicated  fabric  of  her 
Church  and  State,  essentially  changed;  Russia,  with  her  colossal 
mineral  wealth  in  full  exploitation;  Russia,  ever  more  nearly  self- 
sufficing  and  more  independent  of  the  Western  World;  Russia, 
pushing  her  railways,  building  her  factories  and  opening  her  mines 
right  out  into  the  heart  of  China  and  the  centre  of  Central  Asia, 
while  she  is  deliberately  ringing  India  round  with  her  net  of  rail- 
^vavs — this  is  the  Russia  of  the  future  brought  to  mind  by  a  few 
days  spent  among  the  merchant  princes  of  Moscow. 

The  Russian  has  an  affection  for  things  which  are  new,  there- 
fore when  lie  enters  the  great  Square  of  the  Kremlin  his  enthu- 
siasm vents  itself  upon  the  gorgeous  green  and  gold  memorial 
of  Alexander  IIL  The  foreigner,  on  the  other  hand,  though  he 
is  charmed  with  the  towers  on  the  wall  embow'ered  in  trees,  de- 
lighted with  the  quaint  monastery  and  the  nunnery  where  the 
Tsaritsas  are  buried,  dazzled  by  the  treasury,  and  duly  impressed 
by  the  Great  Palace,  is  not  halted  by  emotion  until  he  finds  him- 
self in  the  painted  gloom  and  amid  the  buried  patriarchs  of  the 
little  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption,  "  fraught  with  recollections, 
teeming  with  worshippers,  bursting  wdth  tombs  and  pictures  from 
pavement  to  cupola,"  as  Dean  Stanley  said.  But  his  emotion 
is  not  for  these.  Then  it  is  because  the  Tsar  is  crowned  amid 
these '' infinite  riches  in  a  little  room  "?  Not  at  all.  It  is  because 
the  Tsar  crowns  himself  there.     He  is  so  incomparably  greater 


o 
u 

o 


-J 

UJ 


f 


H^ 


,--i.Z  •  •■• 


i  .!     I 


/i 


Till-:    TWO    MOSCOWS 


35 


than  all  ulhcr  men  that  riubociy  hut  hn]iM.hl  can  hallow  and  onhini 
hhn  Kini:',     So  cxah.fd  and  remote  and  sacred  is  lie  that  not  even 
the  chief  >er\ant  of  God  l^  hi^i;li  enongh  to  place  the  crown  u|)on 
his  hrow.     Therefore,  in  the  holiest  spot  of  the  Holy  Citv,  amid 
all  the  pomp  of  the  living-  and  all  the  solemnity  of  the  dead,  sur- 
rounded I)\-  the  royalty  of  the  world,  while  hells  clash  and  camion 
roar  and  multittides  throng  without,  the  hereditary  heir  of  the 
RomanotYs — though  but  a  trace  of  real  RomanofY  blood  is  left — 
crowns  and  consecrates  himself  Emperor  and  Autocrat  of  all  the 
Russias,  and — for  the  whole  list  is  well  worth  recalling — of  Mos- 
cow,  of   Kiev,   of   Vladimir,   of  Novgorod;    Tsar  of   Kazan,   of 
Astrakhan,  of  Poland,  of  Siberia,  of  Kherson-Taurida,  of  Grusi; 
(iosudar  of  Pskov;    (irand  Duke  of  Smolensk,  of  Lithuania,  of 
Volynia,    of   Podolia   and   of   Finland;     Prince   of   Esthonia,    of 
Libonia.  of  Kurland;    of  Semigalia,  of  the  Samoyeds,  of  Bielos- 
tok,  of  Korelia.  of  Foer,  of  Ingor,  of  Perm,  of  Viatka,  of  Bulgaria, 
and  of  other  countries;    Master  and  Grand  Duke  of  the  Lower 
Countries  in  Novgorod,  of  Tchernigov,  of  Riazan,  of  Polotsk, 
of   Rostov,  of   \\iroslav,   of  \^ieloselsk,   of  Udork,   of   Obodsk, 
of  Kondisk,  of  Vitelsk,  of  Mstilav,  and  of  all  the  countries  of  the 
North;  Master  Absolute  of  Iversk,  of  Kastalnisk,  of  Kabardinsk, 
and  of  the  territory  of  Armenia;    Sovereign  of  the  Mountain 
Princes  of  Tcherkask;    Master  of  Turkestan,  Heir  Presumptive 
of  Norway,  and  Duke  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  of  Stormarne,  of 
Dithmarschen,  and  of  Oldenburg.     And  it  is  sober  truth,  as  I 
have  said,  that  to  the  majority  of  the  people  who  live  in  these 
places  the  man  who  thus  crowns  himself  in  the  House  of  God 
becomes  thereby  something  more  than  human— a  semi-divine 
person.    One  is  reminded  of  the  vigil  of  Festus: 

— those  bright  forms 
We  clothe  with  purple,  crown,  and  call  to  thrones, 
Are  human,  but  not  his ;  those  are  but  men 
Whom  other  men  press  round  and  kneel  before — 
Those  palaces  are  dwelt  in  by  mankind ; 


'  -A-«^*t  ^.■■-'^.#,.  —  'vrv^f*--. />  »-^»«i  '•. 


• —t  #■•*  »«»■»-*  »^'.<>-»-'*N-^»#*    •■l#  ,•»••,  ••%♦  "^  .—%  .B.   A^.    -  . 


36  ALL   -nil.    RUSSLAS 

Higher  provision  is  for  him  y<»n  ^ft'k 
AiiiKl  nut  punii)  and  glories:  see  it  here  ! 
behold  earth's  paragon  !     Now.  raise  thee,  clay  ! 

TluMv  i^  iiMtliiim-  like  it  m  ilu-  v..Mi.l:   pmlai;!}  no  .ucli  claim 
ha,  ever  U'cii  imi    i.Tili  elsewhere  a^  i^  rcmilarlv  made  in   thi^ 
,inirr1i  w1irii  T<nr  <n^ceea^  Tsar-ceriainK'   ih>  Mieh   riaim   has 
,,,r  i  eeii  -^  widely  and  so  shicerely  allowrl     An  1  i- -  mulci^uuid 
Russia  11  1.  a])solutely  necessary  to  appreciate  this  fact.    Unless 
you  realize  that  in  Russia  the  Tsar  is  everything,  literally  every- 
thing;   that  not  only  is  his  will  law  but  that  it  is  also  heaven- 
inspired  right;  that  his  land  and  his  subjects  are  his  to  dispose 
of  wholly  as  he  will— I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  masses  of 
the  people— you  will  not  grasp  the  fundamental  condition  of  Rus- 
sia to-day.    A  well-known  story  tells  that  in  a  Russian  battle  not 
so  long  ago,  the  artillery,  urgently  needed  in  front  to  save  the 
day,  was  stopped  by  a  dee])  ditch.     The  soldiers  thereupon  flung 
themselves  in  until  the  ditch  was  full,  and  the  artillery  galloped 
over  their  bodies.     The  incident,  whether  fact  or  fiction,  illus- 
trates the  relation  of  the  common  people  of  Russia  to  their  Sov- 
ereign.   As  you  go  higher  in  the  scale  the  fact  remains,  but  on  a 
different  basis.    Oflficial  rank— /c7//«— is  the  standard  of  position 
— a  greater  or  less  tcJiiu  determines  a  man's  honour  and  influence, 
and  of  course  all  conceivable  tcJiiii  culminates  in  the  Tsar.     If 
you  have  not  yourself  a  high  tcJiiu,  you  must  be  ''  protected  "  by 
somebody  who  has.     Officials  of  high  rank  will  hardly  deign  to 
nntice  you  at  one  minute,  and  the  next  they  are  wholly  at  your 
service,  if  they  have  learned  that  you  are  well  "  protected.''    And 
in  the  highest  society  of  all,  whatever  views  it  may  privately  hold 
and  express,  the  Tsar,  as  the  source  of  promotion  and  the  foun- 
tain of  honours  and  emoluments,  dwells  alone  upon  the  heights. 
In  material  things  it  is  the  same.    I  was  once  discussing  with 
a  Russian  administrator  the  military  capabilities  of  the  Trans- 
Sil)erian  Railway,  and  1  remarked  that  there  would  not  be  rolling- 
stock  enough  to  convey  masses  of  troops  in  a  short  time.    ''  Every 


t/5 

UL) 

< 


H 


36 


j^l  1      111!      RLSblAS 

Higher  provision  is  for  him  you  seek 
Amid  our  pomp  and  glories  :  see  it  here  ! 
Behold  earth's  paragon  !     Now,  raise  thee,  clay  . 


There  is  nothing  like  it  in  the  world:  probably  no  .ua.  c.n:n 
has  ever  been  put  forth  elsewhere  as  is  regularly  made  m  tins 
church  when  Tsar  succeeds  Tsar-certainly  no  such  clanii  has 
ever  been  so  widely  and  so  sincerely  allowed.    And  to  understand 
Russia  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  appreciate  this  fact.    Unless 
you  realize  that  in  Russia  the  Tsar  is  everything,  literally  every- 
thing-   that  not  only  is  his  will  law  but  that  it  is  also  heaven- 
inspire.1  right;  that  his  lan<l  an<l  his  subjects  are  his  to  dispose 
of  wholly  as  he  will-1  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  masses  of 
the  people— you  will  not  grasp  the  fundamental  condition  of  Rus- 
sia to-day.    A  well-known  story  tells  that  in  a  Russian  battle  not 
so  long  ago,  the  artillorv,  urgently  needed  in  front  to  save  the 
day,  was  stoppe.l  bv  a  <leep  ditch.     The  soldiers  thereupon  flung 
themselves  in  until  the  ditch  was  full,  and  the  artillery  galloped 
over  their  bodies.     The  incident,  whether  fact  or  faction,  illus- 
trates the  relation  of  the  common  people  of  Russia  to  their  Sov- 
ereign.   As  you  go  higher  in  the  scale  the  fact  remains,  but  on  a 
different  basis.    Ofificial  nnk— tchhi— is  the  standard  of  position 
—a  greater  or  less  Icliiii  determines  a  man's  honour  and  inllnence, 
and  of  course  all  conceivable  tchin  culminates  in  the   isar.     it 
yuii  have  not  yourself  a  high  tchin,  you  must  be  "  protected  "  by 
somebody  who  has.     Officials  of  high  rank  will  hardly  deign  to 
notice  you  at  one  minute,  and  the  next  they  are  wholly  at  your 
service,  if  they  have  learned  that  you  are  well  "  protected."    And 
in  the  highest  society  of  all,  whatever  views  it  may  privately  hold 
and  express,  the  Tsar,  as  the  source  of  promotion  and  the  foun- 
tain of  honours  and  emoluments,  dwells  alone  upon  the  heights. 
In  material  things  it  is  the  same.    I  was  once  discussing  with 
a   Russian  administrator  the  military  capabilities  of  the  Trans- 
Sil)erian  Railway,  and  I  remarked  that  there  would  not  be  rolling- 
stock  ( iiotieh  to  convey  masses  of  troops  in  a  short  time.    *'  Every 


Of 

> 

y 

< 


UJ 


2e: 


11U%    IWO    MOSCOW'S 


37 


engine  and  carriage  in  Russia  would  be  put  tliere  if  necessary/* 
was  the  rcplv.  '*  But,"  1  olMccted,  "'  thai  would  dir^organize  the 
whole  commerce  of  the  country,  and  Ijring  tens  of  thousands  to 
ruin."     ''  You  don't  understand,"  answered  this  official:    "  li  th.e 


Tsar  g 


ave  the  word  to  take  every  railway  carriage  in  Russia  and 


The  Krcnihn  Square  and  Memorial  of  Alexander 


!..   MOSCOW. 


run  it  across  the  Si])eri:ni    Raiiwav  and  throw  it  into  the  China 
Sea  at  the  oilier  end,  wlu^   i  should  hke  to  know,  winilil  pre\-ent 


-1 1  ii , "' 


it?"'''      The   inlhience   ^^i  tlie   ihr.>nc   i^  mcre;L>nig  ratiier  ilian 
diminishing'-,  fur  1   heard  man\-  complaints  from  educated   Rns- 

•  "Tt.  a  Ru-sian  no  uhstacle  is  unsurmountable  wlitii  his  Tsar  commands."      M. 
de  Witte.  in  ins  Report  to  11.   .M ,  \hv  Viupvr..r  >.n  ilu-  lUidget  of  tin-  J-nii  ire  iuv  IQOO, 


I 


3^ 


ALi.   rm:  rlssias 


THE    TWO    MOSCOWS 


39 


sians  that  CLTiaiii  MiiuMcr.^  of  Slate  were  takiiii;  Llicir  i)rui)Osals 
(lii"cct  t<>  tlie  '{>:[]'.  wln'^e  ^iLinaiure  made  tlieiii  irre\-nca])l_\'  law. 
instead  of  submutini^  tlierii  tir.-t.  a>  i>  cii-toiiiar}-.  to  the  Council 
of  Ministers.  The  d'>ar  himself  deternnned  to  build  the  I'rans- 
Siberian  Ivailway;  it  will  cu>t  a  hundred  nnllion.s  sterling;,  d^radi- 
tion  alone  i.s  more  powerful  than  autocrac}  :  if  it  were  not,  the 
world  would  have  even  i^reater  reasun  to  admire  the  asj)irations 
of  Nicholas  II.  A  Tsar  cannot  conuuand  a  i)olicy  which  no 
Minister  will  undertake  to  carry  out;  he  is  unable  to  control  and 
lielples.s  to  set  a>ide  a  mas>  ot  stati>tics  or  unfaxourable  informa- 
tion which  they  la\-  before  him.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Alexander  111.,  he  is  deliberatel}  overwhelmed  with  details  in 
order  that  he  may  not  espouse  principles.  Thus  a  Tsar  niii.:^ht 
possibly  not  be  able  to  preserve  peace  ai^^ainst  all  the  facts  and 
warnings  and  arguments  l)rought  to  bear  upon  him.  But  he 
could  declare  war,  by  a  word,  at  any  time.  And  it  is  to  the  e\er- 
lasting  honour  of  Alexander  111.  tliat  he  set  his  face  so  stead- 
fastly against  war,  waged  either  b\-  himself  or  \)y  others,  and  of 
Nicholas  II.,  that  his  first  great  act  should  be  to  call  a  Confer- 
ence of  Peace,  although,  some  of  his  Ministers,  both  by  private 
word  and  official  (\q(h\,  made  it  almost  a  mockerw 

From  ruler  to  ruled  is  a  natural  transition,  and  especially  so 
in  Russia,  where  there  is  no  middle  ckk^s  in  which  the  two  quali- 
ties coalesce.  Indeed  tin-  is  the  mo^t  striking  aspect  of  Rus- 
sian society:  at  the  top,  the  imperial  family,  surrounded  bv  the 
nobilit)  ;  at  the  bottom,  the  "  eommon  peo|)le.*'  ivussian  life 
abounds  in  incidents  which  illustrate  a  personal  sympathy  between 
high  and  low  existing  in  no  other  society.  I  read,  for  instance, 
that  one  day  a  miserably  ragged  man  begged  an  alms  at  a  rail- 
way station  from  a  prosperous-looking  passenger.  At  that  mo- 
ment a  (icneral— and  it  must  be  rememl)ered  that  in  Russia  a 
Cicneral  is  a  very  great  personage— with  his  pretty  young  wife 
came  upon  the  platform.  "  1  will  give  you  five  roubles,"  said  the 
man  heartlessly,  "  if  you  will  kiss  the  (ienerafs  wife."    The  beo-- 


>) 


>> 


gar  went  straight  to  the  lady,  fell  upon  his  knees,  and  told  her 
of  his  plight.  She  listened,  and  then,  getting  her  husband's  per- 
mission, held  out  her  cheek  for  him  to  kiss.  The  Xozvyc  I  ^roiiya, 
which  told  the  story,  added  truly  that  such  magnanimity  could 
only  occur  in  Russia.  One  day  I  remarked  to  a  Russian  friend 
with  whom  I  was  dining  what  an  excellent  servant  he  had. 
•'  Yes,"  he  said,  ''and  there  is  also  something  remarkable  about 
him  that  you  don't  see.  That  man  has  been  kissed  by  a  Tsar. 
-  When— why?  "  I  asked  in  astonishment.  "  Some  years  ago, 
replied  my  friend,  "  he  was  on  sentry  duty  in  the  garden  of  an 
Imperial  palace,  and  in  the  early  Easter  morning  the  Emperor 
came  out  alone.  '  I'oskrcss  Cliristos !  ^—'  Chi'ist  is  risen!'  said 
the  sentry,  as  custom  prescribes,  and  it  is  also  prescribed  that 
you  shall  salute  with  a  kiss  the  first  person  who  tells  you  the 
good  news.  Such  customs  in  Russia  are  binding  upon  Emperor 
or  peasant  alike."  It  was  a  charming  story,  and  well  illustrates 
the  comparative  nearness  of  top  and  bottom  in  Russian  life. 

The  development  of  industrialism  with  its  rapidly  made  fort- 
unes is  changing  this  condition  so  far  as  the  large  towns  are  con- 
cerned, but  it  still  remains  true  of  the  country  as  a  w  hole.  What 
impressions  of  the  Russian  people  does  one  gather  from  several 
months'  travel  through  the  whole  empire — a  journey  of  twenty 
thousand  miles?  The  first  thing  that  attracts  your  attention  in 
the  two  capitals  themselves,  is  the  curious  detail  I  have  already 
mentioned,  namely,  that  the  shops  which  offer  wares  to  the  peo- 
ple do  so,  not  in  words,  as  with  us,  but  with  pictures.  I  noticed 
the  same  thing  later  in  going  over  barracks.  In  one  large  frame, 
for  instance,  is  a  series  of  "  penny  dreadful  "  pictures,  showing 
all  the  duties  of  a  sentry— what  the  good  sentry  does  if  a  fire 
breaks  out,  if  a  burglar  is  seen  entering  a  house,  if  a  citizen  is 
attacked,  if  a  sportsman  comes  shooting  birds  near  a  pow^der- 
mao-azine.  and  so  on.    Verv  few  of  the  soldiers  can  read,*  and  this 

*The  official  report  for   i8q6  showed  that  out  of  every  lOO  recruits  an  avera;;e  iA 
28.4  could  write,  and  71.6  could  not  write. 


40 


ALL  I  hi;  russias 


THE     I  WO    MOSCOWS 


41 


is  the  only  way  to  impart  iiiiorination.  In  a  class-room  at  another 
barracks  was  a  >choolniahicr  icachin-  the  letters  of  the  alphabet 
on  a  blackboard  to  a  lar-e  nnnil)er  of  men.  "  This  is  the  class 
fur  me  to  join."  I  remarked,  to  the  -rcat  -lee  of  these  good- 
tempered  grown-np  children. 

ddic  Rus>ian  people,  then,  i-  illiterate,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word.     And  millions  npnii  million.^  oi  people  who  read  no  books 


Br'  'kt'H  I)'  *xn   (  mi   l!k'  SU' 


PP^ 


and  no  newr^|)a])er<,  write  and  iTeei\e  iiu  letter^,  mn-l  inexitaldx' 
be  the  helple.^.^  \ieliin>  ui  .-.uper>i  11  it  m  aiid  pi'ejndice.  This  is, 
of  C()nr>e.  the  fact.  I\n<-ia  is  tlu'  liiniie  ^f  inoia'  religions  manias 
and  crazy  notions  tlian  conld  be  eiiuniei-aied.  \ot  a  month  passes 
vvithont  some  almost  incredible  instance  r^f  relioi(Mis  fanaticism. 
The  end  of  the  world  is  a  con.staiUly  recnrring  belief.  Tlie  horrible 
skopfsi,  whose  practices  one  cannot  more  nearly  describe  than 
by  saying  that  they  carry  ont  literally  tlie  exhortation,  ''  If  thine 


\ 


i 


eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out."  are  represented  all  over  Russia, 
and  in  spite  of  the  severest  measures  the  police  cannot  stop  their 
abominable  propaganda.     It  is  natural  to  the  Russian  peasant 
to  take  the  scripture  literally.    In  ^lay  of  this  year  a  man  named 
Ivan  riotnikof  of  Bielovodsk,  m  the  government  of  Kharkov, 
l)egged  a  book  to  teach  him  to  "  live  in  truth."    He  was  given  a 
Ciospel,  read  Mark  v.  29.  and  was  admitted  to  the  hospital,  hav- 
ing chopped  his  hand  off  with  an  axe,  after  failing  to  gouge 
oiU  his  eye.    The  Dukhobortsi,  too,  the  superior  peasants  who 
left  Russia,  largely  with  Tolstoy's  help,  rather  than  perform  mili- 
tary service,  found  the  laws  of  Canada  as  contrary  to  their  peculiar 
tenets  as  those  of  Russia.    The  government  allotment  of  land,  a 
correspondent  wrote,  was  opposed  to  their  conviction  that  all 
land  should  belong  to  the  community.     They  refuse  to  accept 
the  marriage  law,  claiming  that  the  only  proper  marriage  is  that 
brought  about  by  nuUual  moral  affection,  and  they  cannot  con- 
sent u.  recognise  the  right  of  authorities  to  regulate  such  mai- 
lers.    The  divorce  law  also  conllicts  with  their  idea  of  free  love. 
If  parties  find  their  uiiidii  not  contracted  through  the  pure  feeling 
of  love,  they  have  the  right,  it  is  urged,  to  divorce  themselves. 
And  the  registration  of  births  and  deaths  is  objected  to.  because 
God  knows  all  about  them,    'fhe  Rusr^ian  authorities  are  entitled 
to  more  svmpatliy  than  they  receive,  considering  what  strange 
millions  thev  have  to  deal  with.     A  friend  told  mc  of  a  travelling 
impostor  he' had  seen,  who  went  from  village  to  village  offering, 
for  a  .small  fee.  to  show  some  hair>  from  the  head  of  the  \'irgin 
Uary.     One  person  at  a  time  was  admitted,  a  small  parcel  was 
produced  and  many  wrappings  taken  off  in  succession,  until  in 
the  last  paper  of  all  the  visitor  was  invited  to  ga.-'e  upon  the 
miraculous  hairs.     The  paper  was  c|uite  empty  and  the  peasant 
would  aver  that  he  saw  nothing.    Then  the  impostor  would  sor- 
rowfully explain  that  the  hairs  were  invisible  to  sinful  eyes,  and 
that  only  the  pious  could  see  them.     In  order  to  escape  the  re- 
proach, his  customers  would  loudly  and  i)roudly  assert  that  they 


42 


ALL    im:    lU'SSLAS 


saw  thein  clearly,  and  so  he  did  a  \n-\>k  trade,  ddie  Russian  Gov- 
ernment is  anxious  to  clian-e  it^  old  ( n-eoorian  Calendar  to  that  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  (the  Russian  date  is  now  thirteen  days  l)e- 
hindour  own),l)Ut  it  cannot  do  so,  l)ecau>e  the  peasants  would  be 
furious  if  the  favourhe  sanu-  were  r(.])l)ed  of  then"  proper  bulh- 
days.  Sunday,  hy  the  way,  is  a  ])ers()n  to  the  Russian  lower  classes. 
Poverty  and  illiteracy  naturally  i^o  hand  in  hand.  In  no 
other  L^reat  country  of  the  world  is  po\erty — monotonous,  re- 
signed poverty — to  so  i^reat  an  extent  the  national  characteristic 
of  the  peoi)le.  ddie  only  parallels  1  know  are  in  some  of  the 
Balkan  States.  At  almo-t  any  point  m  rural  Ru>sia  you  mii^iit 
think  xourself  in  the  interior  of  Ser\  ia  or  lUil^aria.  except  that 
even  in  these  countries  the  poor  pea>ain  >eems  not  (piite  so  poor, 
and  his  bearini^  is  more  independeni.  Roni;'  train  journeys  in 
Russia  are  depres.'-iiii^  expcncncc>.  (  )ncc  pa>t  the  limit>  of  the 
towns,  ever\-  \illai^'e  is  the  same~--a  wide  street  or  two — not  really 
streets,  of  cour>e.  but  dee])  du^i  or  mud.  or  >now ,  accordini;'  to 
the  >eaM)n,  and  from  a  >corc  to  a  cou|)le  ol  hundreil  i^ra)',  one- 
store)-  wooden  hou^e.^.  n>uall\  dilapi<laled.  and  a  church.  Russia 
i^  still  tir>t  and  lorcmo-^l  an  aL;riculim"al  countr\';  she  produces 
(includini^  l^oland)  two  th(Mi<aiid  million  bu-hcl^  of  ^rain.  and 
i^'rain  ])ri)ducts  lorm  more  ihan  iialf  her  total  expoi-ts  to  luu'ope; 
therefore  at  tlie  n^lit  season  there  are  -reat  stretches  of  \\a\iiii^" 
helds.  and  later  the  Imi^e  in*  (IiikN  ,  .t  straw  .  wlieiice  the  i^-rain  has 
been  threshed,  iiut  it  i>  m  her  mu.-.l  fertile  district.^  that  the 
worst  famines  occur,  for  famine—  a  little  one  cwerv  vear,  a  biu"  one 
e\ery  se\en  >  ears — has  now  become  a  rei^ular  occurrence.  And 
the  countr\.  as  one  nic>  across  it.  Jeaxes  the  ^-eneral  impression 
of  indio-ence.  In  shar])  and  ])ainful  contrast  with  western  lui- 
rope,  there  are  \irtuall\  no  fat  stack  yai'ds.  tio  cosev  farmdiouse, 
no  chateau  .)f  the  local  land-ownei-.  no  scpiire's  hall — merely 
assemblaj^es  of  men  and  women  just  on  the  hither  side  of  the 
starvation  line.  And.  from  all  one  learns,  disease  is  rife.  Wdiole 
villa<4es,   1  was  told  by  men  who  knew  them  well,  are  i)oisoned 


THK    TWO    MOSCOWS 


43 


with  svphilis,  and  the  authorities,  orravely  alarmed  at  this  terrible 
state  of  tliini;-s,  have  appointed  of  late  several  commissions  of  in- 
(piiry  to  devise  remedial  lueasures.     Drunkenness,  too,  is  a  na- 
tional  vice,    the  peasant   havino-  his  re-mlar  bout   whenever  he 
has  saved  up  a  small  sum,  but  the  new  oovernment   monopoly 
of  the  sale  of  vodka,  which  is  oradually  comino-  into  force  over 
the  whole  country,  will,   1  believe,  exert  a  beneficial  inrtuence 
in  this  matter,  and  much  of  the  denunciation  levelled  at  it  is, 
in  m\'  opinion,  unjust. 
The    vast    void    si)aces 
of  rural  Russia,  by  the 
^vay.  may  be  imai^ined 
from     the    fact    that 
e\er\-    train    carries    a 
ladder    and    tools    and 
elect  rical    a])pliances 
for    cuttini;-    the    tele- 
i^raph  wire  and  callini^ 
for    assistance    m    case 
of   accident    or   break- 
down.    This  hap])ened 
t!i    tne    on    one    occa- 
sion.    The  lines  are,  of 
course,    nearl}'   all    sin- 
le  ones,  so  there  is  no 


Broken  Down  on  the  Steppe— Tapping  the 
Telegraph  lor  Help. 


opportunity  to  sto|)  a  tram  i;oi'kU'  ^^i  ^^^^  op])osite  direction. 
Rast  winter  successive  trains  were  blocked  by  snow  near  Odessa, 
until  several  thousand  i)asseno-ers  were  snowed-u]),  almost  with- 
out food,  for  three  days,  sutterino-  terribly,  and  only  released  and 
l)rovisioned  at  last  by  the  efforts  of  two  reoiments  and  a  hastily 
oro-anised  service  of  sledcres.  Between  the  towns  in  Russia, 
even  on  the  main  lines  of  railway,  you  are  in  a  country  almost 
untouclied  by  the  conveniences  of  modern  civilisation. 

Personallv,  the  Russian  common  people  are  attractive.    They 


44 


ALL     11  li:    RLSSLAS 


THE   TWO    MOSCOWS 


45 


are  simple,  i^ood-natiired.  kiii<ll\.  \vv\  ready  lu  l,)e  i)lea>cd  or  to 
laiiL-li.  Xobodv  can  tail  lo  like  tlieiii.  Their  poverty  does  not 
prevent  tlieni  from  beini;-  liapp\  m  then-  melanehol}-  Slav  fashion. 
1diey  live  in  iVwi  and  are  ine\pres<il)l\-  \ernnnons.  yet  they 
luxnriate  re.^tilarly  in  the  village  \aponr  hat  lis.  r>laek  rye  hreaal. 
eal)l)ai4-e.  hnekwheat.  mn>hroonis.  e-,!^>  are  the  ehief  items  ot  the 
;;////'/7/.v  fare,  lie  is  a  llnent  liar,  ^enerallx  from  amiable  motives. 
1\q  is  relii^ions  in  ever\  lihre  oi  his  heini^.  hnt  his  reli,i;ion  is  wholly 
of  the  letter;  he  is  eonxineed  that  his  priest  has  the  e\il  eye;  he 
i'ets  wildlv  drnnk  at  h'.a^ter  for  jo\  to  think  that  Christ  is  risen, 
and  at  other  times  for  no  reason  at  all.  The  soldier,  typieal  of 
his  elass.  is  a  i^reat  ehild.  and  is  treated  a-  sneh.  Xothini^-  is  left 
to  his  intelliL;enee  or  hi>  initiat:\e.  (  )f  \irtnes  he  has  many — he 
is  hraxe.  obedient,  faithfnl;  ot  wits  he  i>  not  snppo^ed  or  even 
desired  to  show  an\  si^n.  1  lu-  \ri"\  words  he  is  to  .sa\  are  i)Ut 
into  his  monthi.  If  an  riffleer  a<k^  linn  a  (|nesti(^n  that  he  eannot 
answc'r,  he  ma\  not  ^a\.  "  I  do  not  know  ""  ;  he  mnst  I'eplw  "  I 
am  not  able  to  km  iw  ."  W  hm  liis  (  mImiu'I  ^reel  -  him  e*  )llecti\elv, 
he  ha>  one  an^wci';  when  llu'  I  -ai"  ^leel-  him  he  has  aiiiiilu-r- — 
a  whole  scMiieiiee  eai'etnl!}  lecUaied  1>)  heart  and  sii,,nled  m  niii-on 
b\-  the  whole  rei^-iment  in  n  Ion-  ^erie^  <  .f  e\])lo-i\-e  s\l|;ii,| 
1  lis  ])ay  is  aboni   \s.   in</. — 44  cents — e\-er\   i  liiee  moiii  h-. 


e^. 
■  rom 


thv  jsoiiu  o!  \ifw  111  {]]('  nniuaiw  rnartniel.  lie  i-  idi^il  /\\nini!ru- 
fittlcr — (■//(///•(/  canon.     To  In-  mniiljrr  iliere  1-  no  Imm. 

io  ii!!s  o-eneral  eharacierisation   of  ihe    Kn-^ian   p*.])n]aee    1 

mnsi   add  one  ini|)ort;nil   ([nalificalion.     The  exi  raoi'dinarx ilie 

aInioM  nuTedihle  -rowih  ,,i  nKUistrialism  m  Rus-ia  1-  brini^nii; 
abont  a  -real  and  \  iial  ehan-e  in  tlie  masses  of  tlie  people.  The 
])easam  who  work,  xxnli  iinndred^  oi-  iJion-aiKN  of  his  fellows 
in  a  null  or  iaetor\  .^cjon  bee^mie-  a  differenl  bem-  from  tlie 
peasant  toiling-  on  liis  bn  of  \il1a-e  land  and  nn-ratino-  hither 
and  thither,  in  scaMin>  of  a-nenhnral  work,  for  em])lovment. 
This,  to  my  thinkm-,  i>  by  far  the  mo^t  >ionineant  and  impor- 
tant  aspect   of   Knssia  of  to-day,  and   1   shall  have  more  to  say 


about  It  hereafter.  I  only  desire  here  to  make  clear  the  two  great 
characteristics  of  the  Russian  social  fabric,  without  an  apprecia- 
tion of  which  no  Russian  question  or  prospect  can  be  intelligently 
judged— autocracy,  the  semi-divine,  unquestioned,  unbounded 
authoritv,  at  the  toj);  its  counteri)art,  illiterate,  superstitious, 
brute-like  dependence  and  automatonism.  at  the  bottom. 

I  cannot  help  but  turn  back  for  a  moment  to  Old  Moscow, 
before  leaving  the  two  capitals  of  Russia,  with  their  associations 
and  su2:crestions.     In  a 


.  .1^  1  >  ^ 


crowded  street  of  banks 
and  merchants'  offices, 
in  the  "  Chinese  City  " 
— all  foreigners  in  Rus- 
sia   used    to    be    called 
"  Chinese."  just  as  to- 
day   they    are    called 
"  Germans  " — stands  a 
little    medic'eval    house, 
skilfully     and     sympa- 
thetically restored — the 
home   of   Michael   the 
first  Tsar  of  Romanoff 
race.      And   within    the 
Kretnlin     stands     the 
Cathedral  of  the  Areh- 
ano-el    Michael,    the 
mausolemn   of  all   the   Ruriks  and   Romanoffs   till   Peter  built 
his  citv  on  the  Xeva  and  laid  him  down  forever  m  its  island 
fortress-church,  to  be  followed  by  all  the  Tsars  unto  this  day. 
In  the  one  place  you  see  the  little,  low,  many-coloured  rooms 
(much  like  the   old   royal  apartments  in  the   Kremlin  palace), 
the  narrow  bed,   the   modest   clothes-chest,   the   great   wooden 
krass  bowl,   the  green  leather  boots  with   their  pointed   spur- 


The  Home  of  the  Rt»manoffs,  Moscow. 


^    .  m   e*.    »  ..- 


44 


ALL    lin:    RUSSLAS 


are  sini])le.  .^ood-natiircd  kindlw  \rr\  ready  tu  \k'  ])k'a>cd  or  to 
laudi.  Xobodv  can  fai!  lo  like  ihein.  Their  poverty  doc?  not 
])revent  tlieni  from  1)eni^-  liap]))  in  llieir  nielaneliol}'  Slav  fashion. 
They  live  in  dirt  and  are  niexpres<il)ly  xernnnons,  yet  they 
luxuriate  re^ularlv  in  the  village  \apoin-  baths.  IJlack  rve  ])rea(k 
cab1)a<re.  buckwheat,  nui.diroonis,  e^u>  are  the  chief  items  of  the 
;;//////; \v  fare,  lie  is  a  tluent  liar,  ^enerall}-  from  amiable  motives. 
He  is  reli<;i()us  in  every  fibre  oi  his  beini;,  but  his  relii^ion  is  wholly 
of  the  letter;  he  is  conxinced  that  his  ])riest  has  the  e\il  eye;  he 
o^ets  wildlv  (lrind<  at  I^aster  for  jov  to  think  that  Cdu-ist  is  risen, 
and  at  other  times  for  iio  reason  at  all.  1Te  soldier,  typical  of 
his  class,  is  a  i^reat  child,  and  is  treated  as  stich.  Xothini;-  is  left 
to  his  intelligence  or  his  initiati\e.  Of  \irtties  he  has  many — he 
is  braxe,  obedient,  faithftd:  of  wits  he  i>  not  sui)po>ed  or  even 
desired  to  show  an\-  siiL^n.  The  \ei"\  words  he  is  to  sa\'  are  ptU 
into  his  niotUli.  If  an  o fli cer  a ^ks  him  a  (jnestion  tliat  he  cannot 
answer,  he  may  not  ^av.  '"  1  ilo  no!  know  "  ;  he  nui^t  I'eplv.  "  I 
am  not  able  to  know."  W  Ikmi  lii.s  Colonel  i^reet^  him  collecti\elv, 
he  has  one  answer:  when  tlie  T^ar  ^reet-  hnn  he  lia^  anijther — 
a  whole  sentence  cai'eftilly  leai'ned  \t\  lieail  and  sht.jiiied  in  unr-on 
b\'   the    wliole  re^nnent    m   a   joni^-   series   r.if  exjdosixe   s\|]al)|es. 

llisp:i\   i>a]Hin!    !  x.    Huf        iiecni- ever\   I  liree  !  n<  u  il  1 1-.      k'rom 

the  ponii  ol  \  lew   oi  the  milu.'ir}-  mariinel.   he  i<  ideal   KiJiwucu- 
futUT — cJiair  i)  canon.     1\)  his  number  there  is  no  Inn.u. 

1\)  this  o-eneral  characterisation  of  the   Russian   pcqnil  ue    i 

nnisi   add  one  important   finnlificntirm.     Tlie  extras  >i-di!iar\- -tlic 

almn-^t   nicretlible      i^rMwih  .»!  industrialism  i\\  l\n->ia  i~>  brinumi^ 
alxnu  a  i-reat  ; 


ni(  1  \  \\:\\  ehanne  i 


n  i  lie  ir 


peasant    wlio   wurk>   wnh   lunidn-e( 


la^^C's  of  the  p(Nn{de.  Tlie 
'  M-  ihon-ands  of  his  fellows 
m  a  mill  or  lactorv  soon  bece.nie.s  a  diflerent  bem-  from  the 
peasant  toilm-  on  his  hu  ,,f  xiHa-e  land  and  nn-ratin--  hither 
and  thither,  m  sea^on>  of  a-ncnliuial  work,  tor  emi)lovment. 
This,  to  my  thinkmo-.  i,  Py  far  the  mo^t  ^iomificant  and  impor- 
tant aspect  of   Russia  of  to-day.  and    1   shall  have  more  to  say 


THK    TWO    MOSCOWS 


45 


about  it  hereafter.  I  only  desire  here  to  make  clear  the  two  great 
characteristics  of  the  Russian  social  fabric,  without  an  apprecia- 
tion of  which  no  Russian  (luestion  or  ])rospect  can  be  intelligently 
judged— autocracy,  the  semi-divine,  unquestioned,  unbounded 
authority,  at  the  toj);  its  counterpart,  illiterate,  superstitious, 
brute-like  dependence  and  autoniatonism.  at  the  bottom. 

I  cannot  help  but  turn  back  for  a  moment  to  Old  Moscow, 
before  leaving  the  two  capitals  of  Russia,  with  their  associations 
and  suggestions.     In  a   ^ 
crowded  street  of  banks 
and  merchants'  offices, 
in  the  "  Chinese  City  " 
— all  foreigners  in  Rus- 
sia   used    to    be    called 
''  Chinese."  just  as  to- 
day    thev     are     called 
*'  Germans  " — stands  a 
little    medircval    house, 
skilfully     and     sympa- 
thetically restored — the 
home    of    Michael,    the 
tlrst  Tsar  of  Romanoff 
race.      And    within    the 
Kremlin     stands     the 
Cathedral  of  the  Arch- 
angel   .Michael,    the 
mausoleum  of  all  the  Ruriks  an<l   Romanoffs  till  Peter  built 
his  citv  on  the  Neva  and  laid  hini  <lo\vn  forever  in  its  island 
fortress-church,  to  be  followed  by  all  the  Tsars  unto  this  <lay. 
In  the  one  place  you  see  the  little,  low.  many-coloured  rooms 
(much  like  the  old  royal  apartments  in  the   Kremlin   palace), 
the   narrow  bed,   the   modest   clothes-chest,  the   great   wooden 
kivss  bowl,  the  sreen  leather  boots  with  their  pointed  spur- 


The  Home  ..f  the  Roimnofls,  Moscow. 


*     F     «     a 


«   -"^  j^.A.«.2fc».i»t-V*««— *■ 


46 


ALL    IHi:    KLSSIAS 


heels,  of  Micliael  Romanoff;  the  nioht -dress  and  the  needles  and 
the  t1at-irons  of  his  wife:  tlie  cradle  and  the  |)la>thin_i;s  of  his 
children.  In  the  other  place  he  lies  heneath  a  wine-red  velvet  pall, 
and  six  and  forty  of  his  race,  similarly  habited  for  eternity,  are 
liis  silent  companions.  When  one  thinks  of  what  these  Roman- 
offs were,  what  they  are,  what  they  desire  to  he.  and  what  are 
the  colossal  and  ever-^'rowin^  forces  they  control,  at  the  mo- 
tion of  a  sin<.(le  will,  to  tnrn  their  all-emhracini^  and  fanatic  de- 
sire into  fact,  I  know  of  few  more  imi)ressive  s])ots  on  modern 
earth. 


COUNT    TOLSTOI     AT 
HOME   AND  ABROAD 


CHAPTER    III 

LEO,   THE   SON    OF    NICHOLAS 

THE  name  of  Moscow  will  always  bring  back  to  my  mind, 
before  anything  else,  my  visit  to  Tolstoy.      Indeed,  he  is 
as  much  a  part  of  Russia,  as  significant  of  Russian  character,  as 
prophetic  of  Russian  development,  as  the  Kremlin  itself.     At 
the  bottom  of  every  Russian  is  a  stratum  of  enthusiastic  ideal- 
ism, of  disbelief  in  the  thing  that  is  and  belief  in  the  thing  that 
may  be.     Scratch  a  Muscovite  and  you  find  a  transcendentalist. 
Drop  into  conversation  with  your  neighbour  in  the  railway  car- 
riage and  in  ten  minutes  you  will  be  disputing  hotly  over  some 
purely  abstract  proposition,  connected,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
with  the  possibility  of  a  perfect  social  state.    With  us  the  classes 
of  those  who  do  things  and  those  who  dream  them  are  sharply 
dissevered;   the  typical  Russian  is  doer  and  dreamer  in  one,  and 
Tolstoy  is  the  dreamer  incarnate  in  every  Russian  heart. 

The  guide-book  describes  Tula  as  the  Russian  Birmingham 
and  Sheffield  combined.  Peter  the  Great  filled  it  with  his  gun- 
smiths, and  to-day,  faithful  to  this  tradition,  it  is  the  principal 
small-arms  manufactory  of  the  Empire.  Moreover,  since  coal 
and  iron  have  been  discovered  in  the  neighbourhood,  it  has  taken 
on  a  new  development,  and  is  now  a  thriving  and  growing  city. 
It  was  not  small-arms,  however,  nor  iron-works,  that  took  me 
thither,  but  something  the  precise  antithesis  of  these  symptoms 
of  modernity.  For  ten  miles  out  of  Tula  lives  Count  Tolstoy, 
and  I  could  not  be  within  six  hours  by  train  of  his  home  with- 
out making  a  pilgrimage  to  meet  the  man  who  is  perhaps  less 
of  this  Russian  world  than  any  other  individual  within  its  con- 

47 


48 


AL.L    IMi:    RUSSIAS 


LEO,    THK    SON    OK    NICHOLAS 


49 


'i 


fines,  yet  whose  voice  i>  re-anlcd  l.y  the  world  outride  as  tlie 
most  remarkable  lliini;-  which  Kii:>>ia  contains  lo-day.  Tn  my 
telegram  reciuesting  permission  came  the  cordial  hnt  untrans- 
latable words,  Milosli  l^rosiiiL  and.  leaving  Moscow  at  night,  at 
eio-ht  o'clock  next  morning  I  \ainly  endeavraired,  in  vei-y  broken 
Russian,  to  make  an  liotel-keeper  and  a  droshky-driver  under- 
stand who  was  meant  by  "(h-af  d^olstoy."  d\)  them  the  great 
man  is  simply  Leo,  son  of  Nicholas,  and  remembering  this  patri- 
archal habit  and  "  Lef  Xikolaievitch,"  1  was  soon  rattling  over 
the  cobble-stones  of  the  long  wide  street  on  the  way  to  Yasnaya 
Polyana,  Count  Tolstoy's  world-famous  estate. 

After  the  misery  of  agricultural  Russia  between  the  frontier 
and  the  capital  it  was  a  relief  to  pass  through  a  landscape  show- 
ing: irood  tillau-e.  g-ood  roads  and  bridges,  good  Hocks  and  herds, 
good  crops,  and  afforestation.  I'or  part  of  the  way  we  drove 
through  dense  forests  of  silver  birch  of  perhaps  twenty  year^' 
growth,  soon  to  follow  their  predecessors  into  stove  and  furnace, 
but  meanwhile  of  fair\-like  beauty,  with  their  sj)otted  shining 
silver  trunks  and  delicate  golden  foliage.  Midwaw  at  the  foot 
of  a  valley,  l)eside  a  railway  and  a  river,  rose  an  example  of  what 
is  really  to-day  "  Xew  Russia  " — a  huge  iron-works,  with  its  un- 
ceasing din  and  its  belching  chimneys,  its  rows  of  little  houses 
and  its  village  of  mud-roofed  triangular  dwellings,  ddiis  belongs 
to  a  lielgian  joint-stock  company,  and  night  and  day,  Sundays 
included,  it  has  a  thousand  men  at  work — men  who  formerly 
tilled  the  sandy  soil  with  careless  hand  and  primitive  im])lement. 
An  ant-like  stream  of  men  pours  across  the  road  to  the  long 
barracks  and  the  half-underground  hovels  where  they  live.  They 
are  not  attractive  men,  either,  and  we  are  uiad  to  be  in  the  ereen 
country  once  more,  with  the  cpiiet  hgures  of  browsing  beasts, 
the  rumble  of  sj^ringless  carts  jerking  along,  a  peasant  asleep, 
his  boots  dangling,  on  each  one,  the  horses  with  bits  beneath 
their  chins,  thoughtfully  picking  their  way  and  giving  elbow- 
room  to  passing  vehicles.    After  about  nine  miles  the  driver  turns 


aside  from  the  excellent  main  road,  and  for  another  mile  the 
droshkv  rocks,  like  a  ship  hove-to  in  a  sea-way,  across  grass 
fields,  where  cart-wheels  have  left  foot-deep  ruts  in  the  recent 
rainv  weather.  There  are  signs  of  careful  planting  about  us, 
and  at  last  something  which  at  home  would  be  called  a  village 
green,  and  two  little  white-washed  towers  forming  the  end  of  an 
avenue  of  old  birches.  The  birches  are  hoary  as  is  their  master's 
head,  and  great  in  stature  even  as  himself,  and  their  way  winds 
upward,  past  an  exquisite  willow-grove  by  a  lake,  till  it  brmgs 
you  in  sight  of  a  white  low-spreading  chateau,  with  iron  roof 
painted  green,  like  ahnost  all  roofs  in  Russia,  close  set  round 

with  trees. 

Tolstoy  works  in  his  room  till  one  o'clock,  and  nothing  is 

ever  allowed  by  his  devoted  family  to  disturb  him.  We  are  there- 
fore led  by  a  manservant  to  a  spacious  upper  room,  where  a 
long  table,  with  a  portly  samovar  at  one  end,  and  a  row  of  chairs 
down  each  side,  shows  that  wide  and  ever-ready  hospitality  is 
the  rule  of  the  household.  There  his  youngest  daughter  charm- 
ingly entertains  us  for  awhile,  until  his  eldest  daughter  and 
daughter-in-law  come  to  take  us  for  a  long  walk  round  the 
farm  and  through  the  birch-woods. 

It  is  not  like  the  farms  of  England,  still  less  like  the  West; 
it  resembles  more  the  neglected  homesteads  of  New  England. 
There  are  long,  low  wooden  barns,  a  long  stable  and  coach- 
house, and  a  fragrant  apple-house,  where  tons  of  apples  are  be- 
ing weighed  and  packed  for  the  train.  Outside  the  barn  lie  two 
wooden  ploughs,  primitive  enough  to  have  come  from  the  depths 
of  Asia.    In  the  stable  Miss  Tolstoy  unfastens  the  loose-box  door 

'  of  her  own  hack,  and  going  outside  calls  to  her.  The  mare  trots 
out  and  follows  her  mistress  about  like  a  dog.  Then  I  am  shown 
what  is  called  the  "  Clydesdale  "  stallion,  and  asked  to  explain  his 
breed.  In  such  an  atmosphere  even  the  innocent  falsehood  of 
politeness  is  impossible,  and  I  am  therefore  compelled  to  say  that 
the  animal  is  just  half  the  size  he  should  be  for  the  name  he 


n 


•  <^''^*t».»«fi-i»t»'-,Vi..»    >f.-^f 


50 


ALL     IHK    RUSSLAS 


bears.  There  is  also  a  13-haiKl  wild  white  horse  from  the  steppe, 
which  is  with  difticulty  perMiaded  by  the  incessant  ptirring  of 
the  Krooni  from  showin-  us  then  and  there  how  really  wild  he  is. 
Count  Tolstoy,  notwithstandmo-  his  -reat  aoc,  hnds  i)erhaps  his 
keenest  pleasure  in  traverMii-  the  country  at  full  -allop  on  this 
narrow  steed.  Then  round  the  tield>  and  throu-h  the  woods  and 
orchards  we  walk  and  talk.  It  is  rather  a  dreary  picture  our 
hostess   paints   of   tlii>    famotis   oiate.      The   land   brings    m    no 

revenue no  landowner  in    KusMa.  we  are  told,  draws  anytliing 

in  the  ^hape  of  I'ent  from  his  estates.  The  peasants  gue  >ervice 
at  sowiui^-  and  liarvot  m  return  for  their  land,  or  a  proportion 
of  their  ci-ops  where  i1k'\  i\^^  not  ^ue  labour.  Ihil  the  crops  are 
small,  and  are  all  Ciuisumcd  011  the  place.     Moreoxcr,  it  i-  grow- 


ini*  e\  cr  ni(  u'e  (iiltic 


.  )    .  T 


mr  al  a^ 


1] 


a^k   w  li\ 


]v  la  11' 


cannot  \)v  tilled  with  naukTU  inri)lciiiLirL>.  lei-tili:?cd  with  artilicial 
manure^,  and  lliv  cr< -p-  rcajHt]  wiili  -el!  binder^,  and  lluis  ^^t  Tl 
at  a  prnfit.  1  am  mm.!  iliai  11  rouhl  noi  be  d^nr;  bin  1  cannot 
learn  wlna  Tt  would  be  (^oiin;ir\'  to  1  <>niu  hii^tox*'^  iluMiru'-. 
^friciK  ^prakmi:,.  1  know-,  but  nirii  -<  1  1-  .ipplc  -cllinL:.  hia"  onr 
linni,:.  tlif  H't'ii  \\ork>  lia\e  disorea!!l^ed  the  di^nuT  Ibf  peas- 
,tiit-  ir,ini|>  t».  the  mil]  cverv  dav  and  wor]<  incn-dibb  l^'Wi:  hMurs 
for  incredibly  small  pay;  which,  however,  saved  for  a  fortnight, 
enables  them  to  indulge  in  l)i-montli]y  orgies  of  vodka.  And 
<h  nk,  as  everywhere,  breeds  crime.  It  is  no  longer  safe  to  be 
on!  aui!  d.iik.  n-d  once  Miss  Tolstoy  and  a  friend  were  pursued 
in  then  ..\.  n  woods  by  ruf^ans.  This  is  the  seamy  side  of  Rus- 
sia's indii-i  naS  dr\  I'iojanent.     Kstate  by  esiaU;  1^  pa^-nig 


K'  haiab  0! 


ullt  of 

iho<e  who  inb(Mated  it  from  a  k^nc^  \\\\k-  -  -f  ancestors. 


1  :i  n  t 


and   inaiiiiiart  nia;i> 


I  1 1 


iiHo  tlu   possession  of  the  rich  iia 

the  cit\ ,  who  ale  ca^cic^^  a^  Lu  pro(hir<, ■  nin !  -n-k  ^  ^\\\\  the  social 
|)rest!L^e  that  land  a!«Mia  -ixc^  in  nhj  countries.  Mi--  T(ii-t<»\  is 
])e-MiniMk-  ill!-  in««riiiii-.  tor  Mir  -oc- «  mi  iu  sa\  thai  e\cii  ul  these, 
tlk'  third  _i;ciua"ain  >n  i-  a]\\a\^  ruiiird  and  ha--  \(^  bcL^'in  a^\ain. 
\()   Russian.     -Ik-  a\iT>,   '"cxcr  "  haiiaU  a   l'aiiiil\,"  a>  \(ju  sav. 


LKO,    THE    SON    OF    NICHOLAS 


5^ 


A  man  makes  a  fortune,  his  son  lavishes  it,  his  grandson  disperses 
It."  In  his  youth,  Tolstoy  was  a  mad  sportsihan,  from  dawn  to 
nightfall  in  the  saddle,  or  with  gun  and  hound.  Then  this  estate 
was  watched  and  cherished  for  the  chase's  sake;  now  he  thinks 
of  it  but  as  an  appanage  of  the  ])eople  wdiich  he  monopolises. 


The  GatL'wav  of  Yasnaya  Polvana. 


h,ii  lie 


bi-   do--  IcaiHiiL:" 


re  he  cunie^,  walking  stuihi)  down  the  narrow  woodway, 
joyously  about   liini. 

Count  Toi-toy's  face  is  as  familiar  a-  iliat  of  an\  crowned 
rn!rr  of  to^rlnv.  F\-er\b(idi\  kimw^  ..1  his  sini|)le  habit.s,  lii.s  peas- 
ant"- bhai-e.  Ins  a\(»nlance  of  meat,  wine  and  tobacco — in  a  word, 
of  hi-  practical  einl)odiment  of  a  curioudy  ])rimitive  form  of  C  lin- 
tian  faith.,  b.nt  his  ai)pearance  makes  an  im|)re'^sion  no  whit  less 
keen  because  it  is  exactl\  what  you  liave  long  known.  He  is 
seventv-two.  and  bis  broad  strong  face  is  deeply  seatned.  his  eyes 


<  J 


*l 


ALL    TIIL    RUSSLAS 


5'^ 

see  visions  from  far  beneath  heavy  bu^hy  hmu^.  hi^  ])eanl  i.  snow 
white,  lie  wear>  a  n.un.l  -.11  iclt  ea|x  and  a  Mack  l)l()U^^e  with 
a  strap  at  the  waist,  and  hi>  >hoes  arc  in  a  >ti-an-e  ^tate  of  (hlapi- 
^j.^^5.„,  un-  Ihc  led  of  a  man  who,  b^  larth  a  nMl.ieman,  ha>  be- 
cume  iruiii   eonx  u;n<  >n  a    -h<  .nnakcr. 

jl^^.   ^^|^,^^,,o-r:i|,h    rr!.r-dii.,Td    hna-.    whieh   hv  ailrrward    \k'V- 


mitted  nu'  Im  take  dunv-  hiin  \>iw\ 


l>\wi-v]\'  a-  lie  appeared  that  day 


•the  p'rojih^et'^  L'Tuu,  tkie  | 


r.-l 


)a I riai  i 


beard.  1  h<.'  pt;a-an!  -  i  »1<  )ii-e. 


lUit  I  hi'  k-n^  ca!inMt   portrav  the  iiiriinti'  ^\M/eiiiess  Ot  iii^  uxpres- 
Muii,  iiur  \\w  pen  onncx   the  cxetahni;  -mkieness  of  his  words. 
For  him  the  law  and  the  prophets,  the  ten  cuniiiiandiiients  and 
tiic  caieg.  iKal  nnperative,  are  all  comprised  in  the  one  word- 
Love     Who  has  it,  has  everything— religion,  ethics,  law,  politics; 
who  has  It  not,  has  nothing.     "  Write  me  as  one  who  loved  his 
fellow-men,"  would  be  also  Tolstoy's  request  to  the  recording 
angel  if  he  were  not  far  too  modest  to  wish  to  be  written  down 
at  all.    And  his  devotion  to  the  race  marks  his  attitude  to  the 
individual.    He  greets  you  with  genuine  pleasure,  he  asks  your 
opinion  almost  with  deference,  he  considers  your  answer  with 
respect.     Your  personality  is  evidently  a  thing  he  regards  as 
sacred.     You  struggle  in  vain  to  reverse  the  relationship,  but 
without  much  success,  for  his  soul  dwells  apart  and  you  can- 
not get  on  the  same  plane  with  him — there  is  so  little  common 
ground  between  you.     To  questions  about  matters  of  current 
iiiierest,  he  often  replies  as  a  mathematician  might  reply  to  a 
cpiestion  about  the  rotation  of  crops,  and  to  my  own  common- 
pkace  questions,  prompted  by  every-day  life  and  mundane  affairs, 
fluii   if  line  frtim  the   Inuning  bush  of  his  pure  sotti  nii'^wer*^  n^ 
HicunpiaiuoiMbk'  a-  iht-  commandments  mii-i    na\-e  seemed    to 
Moses.     *"  .\ic  \ou  iii  >\nn>a'M\."   !  a-kcd,  '"  \\i\\i  M  .  de  \\  iUc"s 
|)(ilic\'  iif  fo^trri-iL;   1>\"  a'il   nu-.-in-  ilu-   iiii!ii>tri;il  ■K'\  I'N'iinK'iU   i>f 
kus-ia,  a--  ai;aiiist  licr  a-ricnltiii-al  (lc\  fIu|)nH-ui;  "     "  1  Ju  not 
sec."  was  the  Delphic  repl\.  '■  that  it  makes  an  entwine  work  anv 
better  or  worse  if  you  paint  it  red  or  blue  or  green."    It  took  nic, 


Li:o,  thb:  son  ok  Nicholas 


53 


Count   1-lstoy  at  Home. 

beniolned  recipient  of  an  inspired  message,  several  day.  to  get 
dowti  to  the  be<l-rock  meannig  of  tins  ethical  conundrum.  W  hen 
I  did,  I  sa\v  that,  l.ke  all  Tolstoy's  utterances,  it  led  straight  back 
to  the  single  primal  principle  which  for  him  sums  up  Chnst'.s 


^  '., 


54 


ALL     IHI      Rl  SSLAS 


teaching:,  and  offers  the  (^ne  and  only  cnre  for  tlie  ills  of  mankind. 
But  1  ran  him  to  earth,  so  to  speak,  over  the  Dreyfus  case,  at 
that  moment  heing-  reheard  at  Rennes.  And  to  my  unspeakable 
astonishment  I  found  him  a  believer  in  the  "  secret  dossier,'^  a 
defender  of  the  (ieneral  Staff,  accepting  the  i:i:uilt  of  Dreyfus  as 
an  easier  alternative  than  the  conspiracy  of  his  fellow-officers 
against  him.  "The  i)eoj)le  are  hyi)notised,"  he  said;  **  they 
know  nothing  and  they  all  shout  the  same  thing.  After  all,  why 
should  I  concern  myself  with  Dreyfus — are  there  no  innocent 
men  in  the  prison  of  d\da?  "  * 

In  truth,  Count  Tolstoy  lives  in  a  world  of  his  own — a  world, 
however,  into  which  many  thousands  of  Russians,  following  either 
him  or  Sutayef,  have  also  entered,  lie  sees  current  affairs  from 
afar  off.     *'  Tell  me,"  he  said,  as  we  sat  over  coffee  after  lunch, 

*  The  latest  illustration  of  Count  Tolstoy^  intellectual  remoteness  from  contempo- 
rary affairs  is  furnished  l)y  liis  reply  to  some  (Questions  aihlressed  lo  him  by  the  A'cviw 
BhniiJic  of  Paris.      lie  says  : 

"  My  reply  to  your  first  ([uestion.  as  to  what  tlie  Russian  jx-ople  thinks  of  the 
Franco-Russian  Alliance,  is  this.  Ihe  Russian  ])eople.  the  true  Russian  peo{)le.  has 
not  the  smallest  idea  of  its  existence  ;  but,  if  it  were  known  to  it.  I  am  certain  that,  all 
peoples  bein^;;  e(}ually  indifferent  to  it,  its  common  sense  as  well  as  its  sentiment  of 
humanity  would  show  it  tiiat  this  exclusive  alliance  with  one  j)eople  in  preference  to 
any  other  can  have  no  othei»  object  than  to  involve  it  in  enmities  and  perhaps  in 
wars  :    and  on  this  account  it  would  be  in  the   hiL,diest  de;^^ree  disjileasiun;  to  it. 

"To  the  ([uestion  whether  the  Russian  people  shares  the  enthusiasm  of  the  French 
people  I  think  I  may  reply  that  the  Russian  people  not  only  does  not  share  its  enthu- 
siasm— if  such  enthusiasm  really  exists,  which  I  very  much  doubt  — but  that,  if  it  knew 
all  that  is  said  and  done  in  I'rance  with  re^^ard  to  this  alliance,  it  would  actually  con- 
ceive a  feeling  of  distrust  and  antipathy  lor  a  people  which  without  any  reason  .sud- 
denly sets  itself  to  profess  a  spontaneous  and  exceptional  lo\e  for  it. 

"  As  to  the  third  ([uestion — what  is  the  effect  of  this  alliance  on  civilisation  in  <;en- 
eral  ?  I  think  I  am  entitled  to  sujipose  that,  //-/r/;/^-  no  other  po.^sii'Ic  niofir,-  t/uin  loar 
or  tncficue  of  iK'tir  (V^aiiist  otJu-}-  poof'ios,  its  influence  cannot  but  be  mischievous.  As 
for  the  effect  of  the  alliance  on  tiie  two  nations  which  form  it.  it  is  clear  that  it  has 
produced  up  to  the  present  and  can  p»roduce  in  the  future  nothini^  but  the  greatest  mis- 
chief to  the  two  j)eoples." 

(  >f  course  the  Russian  people,  the  masses,  know  nothing  whate\er  about  the  Dual 
Alliance,  therefore  the  ([uestion  was  essentiallv  a  foolish  one.  Rut  in  describing  it  as 
a  "  menace  of  war  against  otlier  })eo])les  "  ('ount  Tolstoy  dianietrically  mis-states  both 
its  motive  and  its  effect.  (See  Chapter  XXI\'.)  Such  mundane  matters  cannot  be 
criticised  to  any  good  pur[)ose  from  the  stand-[)oint  of  spiritual  intuition. 


LKO,   THE   SON    OF    NICHOLAS 


55 


"  of  the  progress  of  Socialism  in  England."    And  his  face  clouded 
over  when  1  told  him  that  Socialism,  at  least  under  its  own  name, 
plavs  a  far  smaller  part  in  English  life  than  it  did  within  my  own 
recollection  twenty  years  ago.     "  Then  tell  me."  he  continued. 
••  what  is  being  done  in  England  about  the  '  single  tax.'  "    And 
he  was  obviously  deeply  disappointed  when  I  replied  that  noth- 
ing was  being  done  about  it  at  all.     One  trifling  remark  in  our 
conversation  interested  him  most.     Looking  at  some  carpenters 
at  work.  I  happened  to  say  that  1  try  to  do  with  my  own  hands 
all  the  carpentry  on  my  farm.     He  at  once  came  over  to  me  to 
ask  about  it.    And  in  the  liking  of  one  man  for  simple  country 
life  and  manual  labour  he  evidently  thought  he  discovered  a 
symptom  of  hope  for  the  future  of  a  nation.     For  thither  runs 

his  own  ideal. 

So  far  as  the  secular  authorities  are  concerned.  Tolstoy  seems 
to  bear  a  charmed  life.    The  story  about  the  Tsar  meeting  him 
at  a  railway  station  and  holding  a  long  conversation  with  him, 
was  a  pure  invention.     Indeed,  when  an  important  official  from 
St    Petersburg  came  to  Tula  in  the  course  of  certain  investiga- 
tions, and  desired  to  ask  Tolstoy's  advice,  the  latter  refused  to 
receive  him.    But  except  the  suppression  of  some  of  his  writings, 
the  authorities  leave  Lef  Nikolaievitch  alone,  though  his  views 
must  seem  to  them  the  quintessence  of  subversive  propagandism. 
-Three  things  I  hate."  he  said  to  me:   "autocracy,  orthodoxy, 
and  militarism."  and  these  are  the  three  pillars  of  the  Russian 
State      I  asked  him  point-blank,  -  How  is  it  that  the  Govern- 
ment has  never  arrested  or  banished  you?  "     "  I  cannot  tell," 
he  answered,  and  then,  after  a  moment's  pause  he  added,  slowly, 
in  a  tone  of  much  solemnity:   "  I  wish  they  would.    It  would  be 
a  great  joy  to  me."    The  general  opinion  among  advanced  Rus- 
sians is  that  the  police  are  restrained  in  this  instance  by  the  world- 
wide scandal  that  any  harsh  treatment  of  Tolstoy  would  cause. 
But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Tolstoy's  influence,  which  is  proba- 
bly crreater  out  of  Russia  than  in  it,  being  almost  confined  to  the 


56 


ALL    rm:    RLSSIAS 


spiritual  sphere,  is  not  fotmd  runnini;-  atluvart  tlie  administration 
in  practical  life.  How  should  it?  Here,  for  example,  is  one  of 
his  proposals.  '*  My  land  here,"  he  said  to  me,  when  I  pressed 
him  for  some  immediate  i)ractical  reform,  "  is  worth  to  me,  let 
us  say,  six  rouhles  an  acre  a  year.  I  would  have  the  (Govern- 
ment impose  upon  this  land  a  tax  of  nine  rouhles.  1  could  not 
pay  it.  \'ery  well,  let  them  take  it  away  from  me  and  ^ive  it  in 
cultivation  to  peasant  families  in  small  (juantities  sufficient  to 
support  them.  They  could  well  pay  the  hii^her  rate  for  it."  Such 
views  as  this  do  not  endani^er  the  Russian  social  fahric. 


Vasn;i\:i  PnlsaiKi,  (^.'»uiu    i'<'lsU)v'N  lit.nu'  (riuiil). 


For  some  nriexj)lainc(l  i-c;in;)ii.  hdwevci".  and  hy  sonu*  extra*  m"- 
dinai'\-  error  of  ccclesia:^tical  tactics,  the  religions  autlu  »iities 
suddenly  excomnnniicated  him  in  March  of  this  year.  J  was  told 
bv  Russians  that  the  reason  was  the  issue  of  tl\  sheets  at  a  kopeck 
apiece,  containint::  his  l)ittcrest  (lenuiiciatii)iis  of  the  ( )ith(i(lo.x; 
Church,  and  the  enormous  circulation  these  were  ha\'ins,;-  among 
the  people.  In  accordance  with  what  he  had  said  to  me 
about  secular  prosecution,  he  reni.arked  to  a  recent  visitor,  "  The 
day  of  my  excommunication  was  the  happiest  of  my  life." 
But  this  did  not  jirevent  him  from  striking  hack  at  once,  in  a 


LEO,   THK    SON    OF    NICHOLAS  S7 

long  letter  a.ldressed  to  the  Holy  Synod.  The  latter's  decree, 
he  declared,  is  illegal  or  intentionally  ambiguous;  .t  is  arbitrary, 
uniustii^able.  and  mendacious.  Moreover,  it  contains  a  calumny 
and  constitutes  an  incitement  to  wicked  sentiments  and  acts 
•■  1  have  not  repudiated  the  Church.-  he  added,  •'  because  1  liad 
revolted  against  the  l-ord.  1  repudiated  it,  on  the  contrary, 
hecause  1  wanted  to  serve  Cod  with  all  the  force  o^^^ 

He  admits  that  he  denies  the  whole  creed  of  C  "st  amty 
considered  as  theology-the  incarnation  of  esus  Chnst,  the 
Trinitv   the  Immaculate  Conception,  etc.,  but  he  does  not  deny 


Yasnaya  Polyana,  Count  Tolstoy's  Home  (Back). 


"  God  the  spirit,  a  uni,ue  God  of  love,  the  princij^e  of  all  things.^ 
He  believes  not  m  the  Christian  Heaven  and  He  1    but  in  the 
unmortality  of  the  soul  and  man's  moral  responsibility    and  h 
writes  long  an<l  eloc,uently  of  the  Go.l  of  love,  whose  will  i    that 
::  shouural.  live  accor.ling  to  the  law  of  love  as  the  condition 

of  bringing  real  brotherhood  into  a  --^^Tf    V  Tai^lict 
,^^v  be  ••  he  savs  in  conclusion,  "  that  my  beliefs  oiTend,  ai^l  ct, 
oT  c  adalise  some  persons:  it  may  be  that  they  disturb  or^  li. 
nlease-  but  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  change  these  beliefs  any  more 
than  iOs  possible  for  me  to  change  my  body.    I  must  live  and 


58 


ALL    THi;    RUSSIAS 


shall  be  obliged  to  die — and  before  long — yet  all  this  interests 
only  myself.  1  cannot  believe  otherwise  than  1  do  believe  at  the 
moment  when  I  am  preparing  to  return  to  this  God  from  whom 
I  came.  I  do  not  say  that  my  faith  has  been  the  only  incontesta- 
bly  true  faith  for  all  times,  but  1  do  not  see  any  other  simpler  or 
clearer,  none  which  responds  better  to  the  requirements  of  my 
mind  and  heart.  If  suddenlv  there  should  be  revealed  another 
faith,  better  capable  of  satisfying  me,  1  would  adopt  it  at  once, 
for  truth  is  the  only  thing  that  is  of  importance  to  God.  As  for 
returning  to  the  doctrines  from  which  I  emancipated  myself  at 
the  price  of  so  much  suffering,  I  cannot  do  so.  The  bird  that 
has  taken  its  flight  can  never  return  to  the  shell  out  of  which 
it  came."  * 

Before  this,  however,  Countess  Tolstoy  had  addressed  to  the 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod  a  pathetic  and  passionate  protest 
against  the  excommunication  of  lier  husband,  which  (leser\es 
quotation  at  length,  if  only  to  refute  the  statement  so  commonly 
made — in  Russia,  also — that  she  is  without  svmpathv  with  his 
views.  "  I  have  read  in  the  newspapers,"  she  wrote,  "  the  de- 
cree of  the  Holy  Synod  excommunicating  my  husband,  Leo 
Nicholaievitch  Tolstov.  This  exconinumication.  countersicfned 
by  the  Bishop  of  the  Church,  cannot  leave  me  indifferent. 

''  My  indignatiou  and  grief  are  immense.  Not  that  my  hus- 
band's spiritual  death  is  entailed  l)y  that  document.  This  is  God's 
affair,  not  man's.  Froui  the  religious  stand-point  the  life  of  the 
soul  remains  an  impenetrable  mystery  for  each  of  us,  and  that 
life,  thank  Heaven,  is  dependent  on  no  earthly  power.  lUit  when 
I  see  this  excommunication  pronounced  by  the  Church  to  which 
I  belong  and  shall  never  cease  to  belong,  which  Christ  has  estab- 
lished in  order  that  in  God's  name  it  should  consecrate  all  the 
most  solemn  acts  of  man's  life — birth,  marriage,  death — whose 
mission  is  to  proclaim  the  law  of  charity,  the  law  of  pardon,  the 
love  of  our  enemies  and  of  those  who  hate  us,  and  whose  prayers 

*The  Times,  May  i,  190 1. 


LEO,   THK   SON    OF    NICHOLAS  59 

are  due  to  all.  1  an.  at  a  loss  uhat  to  think.  That  excommunica- 
tion W.11  excite  not  the  adhesion  but  the  indignation  of  men,  and 
^vill  earn  for  Leo  Tolstoy  increased  love  and  sympathy.  W  e  are 
alreadv  rece.vmg  the  expression  of  these  sentiments,  and  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  it  will  long  continue  to  reach  us. 

••  Deep  too.  is  the  pain  caused  me  by  another  senseless  meas- 
ure recentlv  adopted-the  secret  order  by  which  the  Holy  Synod 
forbuls  priests  m  the  event  of  Leo  X.cholaiev.tch-s  death  to  bury 
hm,  ni  church,    .\gamst  whom  >s  this  blow  directed?    Ihe  dead, 
the  msensible  remains  of  the  man.  or  his  kindred,  the  behevers 
surrounding  him?    If  it  is  a  threat,  to  whom  is  it  addressed,  agan.st 
who.n  .s  It  anned?     Is  k  really  believed  that  I  shall  not  hnd  a 
priest  to  celebrate  mv  husband-s  funeral  service  and  pray  for  hmi 
i„  church-a  goo,l  priest  who  in  the  presence  of  the  true  God  of 
love  disregards  the  commands  of  men.  or  a  bad  pnest  whom  an 
offer  of  mmiev  would  place  at  my  disposal?    But  even  this  .s  no 
necessarv.     For  me  the  Church  is  an  abstraction,  and  I  do  no 
acknowledge  other  mmisters  than  those  who  comprehend  what 
it  reallv  is.     \\'ere  h  necessary  to  believe  that  the  Church  is 
merelv'the  congregation  of  men  who  out  of  malice  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  violate  Chrisfs  highest  command,  the  law  o    love,  we 
should  long  ago  have  left  it.  all  of  us  who  are  faithful  to  it  ai.d 
observe  its  laws.    .\n<l  the  renegades  are  not  those  who  go  a  trav 
i„  search  of  truth,  but  those  who.  placed  by  their  very  pride  at 
the  head  of  the  Church  and  unfaithful  to  the  law  of  love,  hum.i- 
.    "l  mercv.  act  as  spiritual  hangmen.     God  will  be  lenient    o 
U;ose  who  even  outside  the  Church  have  lived  a  life  of  hunv^.t y, 
renunciation  of  the  good  things  of  this  world,  love,  and  d  vo- 
tion     His  pardon  is  surer  for  them  than  for  those  whose  mitres 
InddecoraUons  sparkle  with  precious  stones,  but  who  stnke  and 
expel  from  the  Church  those  over  whom  they  are  set  as  p    tor. 
Hvpocrisv  will  try  in  vain  to  distort  my  words,  for  good  faith  will 
not  err  in  judging  people's  real  intentions."  * 

*  The  Times,  March  19,  1901- 


6o 


ALL    THi;    RUSSJAS 


Three  weeks  later,  Mi^r.  Antonius,  Metropolitan  of  St.  Peters- 
burg-, replied  to  this  letter,  ha\ing  waited,  as  he  ex])lained,  until 
the  tirst  outburst  of  her  grief  had  subsided,  lie  repelled  the 
accusation  of  cruelty  made  by  the  countess  by  explaining  that 
the  count  had  rather  been  cruel  to  himself  in  voluntarily  renounc- 
ing the  only  *'  source  of  eternal  life,"  adding  that  it  was  against 
such  renunciation  on  his  part  that  his  wife's  protest  should  have 
been  directed,  and  not  against  the  action  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
whose  decree  merelv  recognised  an  accomplished  fact.  That  de- 
cree, moreover,  did  not  violate  the  Christian  law  of  mercy  and 
forgiveness,  but,  on  the  contrary,  was  an  act  of  love  toward 
the  count,  inviting  him  to  repentance  and  reunion  with  the 
Church.  As  to  the  assertion  of  the  countess  that  she  could  in 
any  case  obtain  a  Christian  burial  for  her  hus])and  l)y  love  or 
money,  his  Eminence  declared  that  any  such  act  would  l)e  a 
criminal  ])rofanation,  and  he  did  not  see  why  the  countess  should 
be  so  eager  to  force  u])on  her  husband  a  form  of  burial  which  he, 
apparently,  would  not  wish  to  haxe.  It  was  not  astonishing  that 
marks  of  sympathy  continued  to  reach  the  count  from  all  parts 
of  the  world.  "  There  is  a  glory  of  man  and  a  glory  of  Ciod.  For 
all  llesh  is  as  grass,  and  all  the  glory  of  man  as  the  flower  of  grass, 
but  the  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever."  As  long  as  the 
count  lives  there  is  hope,  and  the  Holy  Sxnod  had  only  expressed 
the  exact  truth  in  stating  that  he  had  withdrawn  himself  from 
the  Church  and  is  no  longer  a  luember  of  it  unless  and  until  he 
repent.  Although  the  clergy  wear  diamond-studded  mitres  and 
stars,  they  would  be  just  as  much  pastors  of  the  Church  if  they 
were  again  dressed  in  rags  and  persecuted.* 

Four  months  afterward  Count  Tolstoy  fell  gravely  ill,  and 
his  life  was  despaired  of.  According  to  all  accounts  from  Russia 
this  prospect  deeply  alarmed  both  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  sec- 
ular authorities,  for  their  action  had  provoked  popular  feeling 
to  a  degree  they  had  wholly  failed  to  foresee.     A  most  embar- 

*  71  I e  Ti))ies,  .\pril  S.   1901. 


LKO,    THK    SON    OF    NICHOLAS  6i 

rassing  dilemma  faced  them.  If  they  refused  Count  Tolstoy 
Christian  burial,  they  risked  an  explosion  of  anger  against  the 
Church.  If  they  granted  it,  they  stultified  their  own  decree. 
Happily  the  occasion  for  a  decision  was  postponed,  but  the  Synod 
has  already  gone  so  far  as  to  explain  that  the  decree  of  excom- 
munication was  only  temporary,  not  eternal.  It  seems  highly 
probable  that  some  way  of  avoiding  so  very  delicate  a  situation 
will  be  found  before  it  again  threatens. 

So  far  as  a  foreigner  may  express  an  opinion,  the  Church  m 
Russia  needs  no  defence  of  this  kind.  It  has  become  part  of 
the  very  nature  of  the  masses  of  the  people— as  I  have  said  be- 
fore, even  the  State  and  the  Church  together  cannot  venture  to 
change  the  Gregorian  Calendar  because  the  people  will  not  have 
their  saints'  days  altered.  The  excommunication  of  Tolstoy,  too, 
could  have  no'  possible  effect  upon  the  educated  classes,  whose 
religious  views  are  definite  and  well  known.  Finally,  since 
so  manv  of  Tolstoy's  writings  are  not  permitted  to  be  circu- 
lated in  Russia,  the  efi-ect  of  his  views  there  is  hardly  so  far- 
reaching   as   to    call    for    such    conspicuous    and    heavy-handed 

treatment. 

The  truth  is,  I  believe,  that  Tolstoy's  influence  is  first,  that 
of  his  noble  personal  character;    and  second,  that  of  the  artist. 
It  is  in  this  latter  light  that  educated  Russians  esteem  him.     I 
have  often  heard  people  speak  with  profound  respect  of  his  work 
as  a  creative  artist,  and  in  the  next  breath  laugh  at  his  theories 
of  reform.     What  are  these,  in  a  word?     I  tried  to  summarise 
them,  immediately  after  my  conversation  with  him,  as  follows: 
No  more  nations  and  frontiers  and  patriotism,  but  the  world;  no 
more  rulers  and  laws  and  compulsion,  but  the  individual  con- 
science;   no   more   multitudinous   cities  and   manufactures   and 
monev,  but  simply  the  tiller  of  the  soil,  eating  of  the  fruit  of  his 
toil,  exchanging  with  his  neighbours  the  work  of  his  hands,  and 
finding  in  the  changing  round  of  natural  processes  alike  the  nour- 
ishment of  his  body  and  the  delight  of  his  eyes;   while,  like  some 


6o 


ALL    Tin:    RUSSIAS 


Three  weeks  later,  Ms^r.  AiUonius,  Metropolitan  of  St.  IV^ters- 
bnro;-,  replied  to  this  letter,  haxiiii^-  waited,  as  he  ex])laiiied,  until 
tlie  first   outl)urst  of  her  i;rief   had   subsided.      lie   repelled   the 
aceusation  of  erueltv  made  1)\'  the  countess  bv  exnlainine  that 
the  count  had  rather  been  cruel  to  himself  in  voluntarilv  renounc- 
ing^ the  only  "  source  of  eternal  life,"  addiuL;  that  it  was  ai^ainst 
such  renunciation  on  his  part  that  his  wife's  protest  should  have 
been  directed,  and  not  against   the  action  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
whose  decree  merely  recognised  an  accomplished  fact.     That  de- 
cree, moreover,  did  not  violate  the  Christian  law  of  mercy  and 
forgiveness,    but,   on   the   contrary,   was   an   act   of  love   toward 
the   count,    inviting   him    to   repentance    ant!    reunion    with    the 
Church.  As  to  the  assertion  of  the  countess  that  she  could  in 
any  case  obtain  a  Christian  burial  for  her  husband  bv  love  or 
money,   his   Eminence   declared  that   any   such  act   would   be  a 
criminal  profanation,  and  he  did  not  see  why  the  countess  should 
be  so  eager  to  force  upon  her  husband  a  form  of  burial  which  he, 
apparently,  would  not  wish  to  have.     It  was  not  astonishing  that 
marks  of  symi)athy  continued  to  reach  the  count  from  all  i)arts 
of  the  world.    "  Tliere  is  a  glorv  of  man  and  a  glorv  of  ( nn\.     For 
all  flesh  is  as  grass,  and  all  the  glory  of  man  as  the  ilower  of  grass, 
but  the  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever."     As  long  as  the 
count  lives  there  is  hope,  and  the  Holy  Synod  had  only  expressed 
the  exact  truth  in  stating  that  he  had  withdrawn  himself  from 
the  Church  and  is  no  longer  a  member  of  it  unless  and  until  he 
repent.     Although  the  clergy  wear  diamond-studded  mitres  and 
stars,  they  would  be  just  as  much  pastors  of  tlie  Church  if  they 
were  again  dressed  in  rags  and  persecuted.* 

Four  months  afterward  Count  T)lstoy  fell  gravelv  ill,  and 
his  life  was  despaired  of.  According  to  all  accounts  from  Russia 
this  prospect  deeply  alarmed  both  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  sec- 
ular authorities,  for  their  action  had  j)rovoked  popular  feeling 
to  a  degree  they  had  wholly  failed  to  foresee.     A  most  embar- 

*  IV/c"   l^ifiies,  April  S,    kjoi. 


»-.»-*  .  ■ 


LLO,    THE    SON    OF    NICHOLAS 


6i 


rassing  dilenuua  faced  them.  If  they  refused  Count  Tolstoy 
Christian  burial,  they  risked  an  explosion  of  anger  against  the 
Church.  If  they  granted  it,  they  stultified  their  own  decree. 
Happily  the  occasion  for  a  decision  was  postponed,  but  the  Synod 
has  already  gone  so  far  as  to  explain  that  the  decree  of  excom- 
munication was  only  temporary,  not  eternal.  It  seems  highly 
probal)le  that  some  way  of  avoiding  so  very  delicate  a  situation 
will  1)e  found  before  it  again,  threatens. 

So  far  as  a  foreigner  may  express  an  opinion,  the  Church  in 
Russia  needs  no  defence  of  this  kind.  It  has  become  part  of 
the  verv  nature  of  the  masses  of  the  people — as  I  have  said  be- 
fore,  even  the  State  and  the  Church  together  cannot  venture  to 
chanf>-e  the  Gregorian  Calendar  because  the  people  will  not  have 
their  saints'  days  altered.  The  excommunication  of  Tolstoy,  too, 
could  have  no  possible  eiTect  upon  the  educated  classes,  whose 
relio-ious  views  are  definite  and  well  known.  Finally,  since 
so  many  of  Tolstoy's  writings  are  not  permitted  to  be  circu- 
lated in  Russia,  the  effect  of  his  views  there  is  hardly  so  far- 
reaching   as   to   call   for   such    conspicuous   and    heavy-handed 

treatment. 

The  truth  is,  I  believe,  that  Tolstoy's  influence  is  first,  that 
of  his  noble  personal  character;    and  second,  that  of  the  artist. 
It  is  in  this  latter  light  that  educated  Russians  esteem  him.     I 
have  often  heard  people  speak  with  profound  respect  of  his  work 
as  a  creative  artist,  and  in  the  next  breath  laugh  at  his  theories 
of  reform.     What  are  these,  in  a  word?     I  tried  to  summarise 
them,  immediately  after  my  conversation  with  him,  as  follows: 
No  more  nations  and  frontiers  and  patriotism,  but  the  world;   no 
more  rulers  and  laws  and  compulsion,  but  the  individual  con- 
science;   no  more   multitudinous   cities  and   manufactures  and 
money,  but  simply  the  tiller  of  the  soil,  eating  of  the  fruit  of  his 
toil,  exchanging  with  his  neighbours  the  work  of  his  hands,  and 
finding  in  the  changing  round  of  natural  processes  alike  the  nour- 
ishment of  his  body  and  the  delight  of  his  eyes;  while,  like  some 


62 


ALL     IHK    RLISSIAS 


directing  angel  poised  a1)Ove,  the  law  of  love,  revealed  in  Christ, 
lights  each  man's  path,  and  so  ilhiniines  the  world. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  species  of  nihihsni.  for  reaHsation  of  it 
would  mean  the  annihilation  of  science,  of  invention,  of  art,  of 
literature,  Init  it  is  the  nihilism  of  the  \i>ionar}-,  and  sliould 
have  no  terrors  for  the  autocrat,  tlie  priest,  or  tlie  major- 
general. 


I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  my  visit  to  Yasnaya  Polyana, 
partly  because  Tolstoy  is  one  of  the  most  striking  of  living  figures, 
and  anything  at  first  hand  about  him,  especially  now  that  we 
can  hardly  hope  he  will  be  included  in  this  category  much  longer, 
is  probably  of  interest;  and  partly  because,  in  his  vague  and 
facile  idealism,  he  is  the  typical  Russian.  There  are,  of  course, 
compact  groups  of  Russian  reformers  working  directly  for  prac- 
tical ends  which  they  keep  steadily  in  view.  Among  these  the 
bimetallists  are  not  the  least  numerous  or  energetic.  But  the 
vast  majority  of  reformers,  so  far  as  I  could  judge  from  my  own 
experience,  are  dreamers.  Almost  every  serious  student,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  socialist,  but  a  pure  theorist,  seeking  the  line  of  de- 
velopment along  which  human  nature  can  perfect  itself.  No 
doubt  of  this  perfectibility  ever  occurs  to  him.  Half  of  them 
label  themselves  Alarxists,  and  the  other  half — some  local  name  I 
have  forgotten.  When  any  new  solution  of  the  social  ])rol)lcm 
is  advocated  anywhere,  it  immediately  finds  disciples  in  Russia. 
Thus  during  the  last  American  Presidential  Election,  a  Populist 
group  of  students  sprang  up,  and  still  exists.  As  Sir  Donald 
Wallace  has  pointed  out,  Russians,  having  received  their  political 
education  from  books,  naturally  attribute  to  theoretical  considera- 
tions an  importance  which  seems  exaggerated  to  those  who  have 
been  educated  by  political  experience.  *'  When  any  important 
or  trivial  question  arises,  they  at  once  launch  into  the  sea  of 
philosophical  principles."  So  far  as  the  students  are  concerned, 
the  result  of  this  national  habit  is  that  they,  the  best  educated 


LKO,    I  HE    SON    OE    NICHOLAS 


63 


and  most  intelligent  class  of  the  community,  exert  little  influence 
in  the  direction  of  change,  \\1ien  the  next  liberalising  move- 
ment comes — and  such  a  movement  is  being  unconsciously  pre- 
pared from  above — not  they,  but  an  entirely  different  class,  will 
have  constrained  it. 


62 


ALL   THE    RUSSLAS 


directing  angel  poised  above,  the  law  of  love,  revealed  in  Christ, 
lights  each  man's  path,  and  so  illumines  the  world. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  species  of  nihiHsm,  for  realisation  of  it 
would  mean  the  annihilation  of  science,  of  invention,  of  art,  of 
literature,  but  it  is  the  nihilism  of  the  visionary,  and  should 
have  no  terrors  for  the  autocrat,  the  priest,  or  the  major- 
general. 


I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  my  visit  to  Yasnaya  Polyana, 
partly  because  Tolstoy  is  one  of  the  most  striking  of  living  figures, 
and  anything  at  first  hand  about  him,  especially  now  that  we 
can  hardly  hope  he  will  be  included  in  this  category  much  longer, 
is  probably  of  interest;  and  partly  because,  in  his  vague  and 
facile  idealism,  he  is  the  typical  Russian.  There  are,  of  course, 
compact  groups  of  Russian  reformers  working  directly  for  prac- 
tical ends  which  they  keep  steadily  in  view.  Among  these  the 
bimetallists  are  not  the  least  numerous  or  energetic.  But  the 
vast  majority  of  reformers,  so  far  as  I  could  judge  from  my  own 
experience,  are  dreamers.  Almost  every  serious  student,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  socialist,  but  a  pure  theorist,  seeking  the  line  of  de- 
velopment along  which  human  nature  can  perfect  itself.  No 
doubt  of  this  perfectibility  ever  occurs  to  him.  Half  of  them 
label  themselves  ^Marxists,  and  the  other  half — some  local  name  I 
have  forgotten.  When  any  new  solution  of  the  social  problem 
is  advocated  anywhere,  it  immediately  finds  disciples  in  Russia. 
Thus  during  the  last  American  Presidential  Election,  a  Populist 
group  of  students  sprang  up,  and  still  exists.  As  Sir  Donald 
Wallace  has  pointed  out,  Russians,  liaving  received  their  political 
education  from  books,  naturally  attribute  to  theoretical  considera- 
tions an  importance  which  seems  exaggerated  to  those  w^ho  have 
been  educated  by  political  experience.  "  When  any  important 
or  trivial  question  arises,  they  at  once  launch  into  the  sea  of 
philosophical  principles."  So  far  as  the  students  are  concerned, 
the  result  of  this  national  habit  is  that  they,  the  best  educated 


LEO,    THE    SON    OF    NICHOLAS 


^3 


and  most  intelligent  class  of  the  community,  exert  little  influence 
in  the  direction  of  change.  When  the  next  liberalising  move- 
ment comes — and  such  a  movement  is  being  unconsciously  pre- 
pared from  above — not  they,  but  an  entirely  different  class,  will 
have  constrained  it. 


FINLAND 


CHAPTER    IV 
FINLAND:    THE    LAND    OF    WOOD    AND    WATER 

FINLAND  is  a  little  country,  and  there  is  not  much  to  tell 
about  it.     But  it   is  the  focus  of  some  brave  ideas,   and 
its   short    story    has   no   soiled    page.      A    desolate    and    water- 
logged land,  in  a  hard  northern  climate,   three-ciuarters  of  its 
surface   destitute   of   population,    possessing   no   natural    wealth 
except  its  forests  and  no  natural  advantages  exce])t  its  water- 
falls,   where    the    ripening    crops    race    against    the    descend- 
ing frost  for  their  harvest-goal  and  are  often  outstripped,  and 
where  the  peasant  for  half  the  year  lives  like  an  Arctic  explorer 
—how  should  it  have  any  story?    Yet  the  very  hardness  of  the 
struggle  has  made  the   Finn  one  of  the  sturdiest  specimens  of 
humanity— only  the  sturdy  could  survive;  industry  was  the  con- 
dition of  his  existence;   his  loneliness  has  l)re(l  self-reliance,  and 
his  long  solitudes  have  awakened  faith.     He  has  developed  in 
this  dark  wintry  corner  of  lun'ope  a  civilisation   curiously  his 
own— quaintly  original  on  the   one   side  and  Transatlantically 
progressive  on  the  other.     He  has  a  natural  bent  for  science, 
especially  in  its  practical  application;   art  has  been  born  to  him 
—not  much  in  quantity,  but  vigorous  and  independent  in  qual- 
ity;   while  literature  has  by  nature  deep  roots  in  the  hearts  of 
men  whose  chilly,  infertile  home-land  is  the  richest  of  all  the 
world  in  folk-song  and  lyric  proverb,  in  legend  and  magic  spell, 
in  epic  saga  and  chanted  rune. 

Yes,  it  is  a  little  country,  but  it  is  big  in  character,  big  in 
the  material  and  moral  progress  it  has  made  under  severe  con- 
ditions, and  it  raises  a  big  political  question.     No  review  of  Rus- 

64 


H 


FINLAND  65 

sia  to-day  could  be  complete  that  did  not  take  Finland  into  ac- 
count, though  even  in  its  short  story  there  is  much  that  cannot, 
with  discretion,  be  discussed  just  now. 

The  first  aspect  under  which  the  visitor  to  Russia  hears  of 
Finland  is  that  of  the  playground  of  St.  Petersburg.  The  fron- 
tier is  but  a  couple  of  hours'  distance  by  rail,  yet  this  little  journey 
takes  you  into  a  more  attractive  rurality  than  can  be  found  in 
other  directions.  A  Russian  grand  seigneur,  with  a  vast  estate  and 
troops  of  servants,  can  have  all  the  pleasures  of  country  life  and 
few  of  its  inconveniences,  even  though  his  estate  be  mortgaged 
to  the  hilt  and  ready  cash  be  a  rare  commodity.  But  for  the 
ordinary  man,  and  particularly  for  the  foreign  resident,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  find  a  small  country  house  in  pleasant  and  healthful  sur- 
roundings. Russia  is  very  flat  and  uninteresting,  from  a  topo- 
graphical point  of  view%  and  Russian  villages  do  not  olYer  by 
any  means  that  wholesome  life  and  idyllic  environment  in  which 
the  townsman  finds  temporary  amusement  and  repose.  On  the 
contrary,  they  are  too  often  dirty  and  drunken,  and  they  are 
nearly  always  poor.  In  Finland,  on  the  other  hand,  pine-clad  hill 
and  dashing  stream  form  the  commonest  natural  features;  the 
peasants  are  fairly  well-to-do,  they  are  healthy,  intelligent,  and 
strikingly  honest;  sobriety  rules,  because  the  sale  of  intoxicants 
is  absolutely  prohibited;  there  is  capital  fishing  to  be' had;  while, 
perhaps  most  influential  reason  of  all,  owing  to  the  lowness  of 
the  Finnish  tariff,  both  necessaries  and  luxuries  are  far  cheaper 
than  in  Russia.  So  everyone  who  can  afford  it — and  almost  every 
foreign  resident  of  the  Capital — buys  or  rents  a  little  country 
house  in  Finland,  where  his  family  lives  during  the  summer — al- 
most intolerable  in  the  fiat,  canal-intersected  city  of  Peter — and 
whither  he  betakes  himself  either  daily  or  at  each  week-end. 

The  northeastern  part  of  St.  Petersburg  is  called  the  Viborg 
quarter,  and  the  Finland  station  is  just  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Neva.  The  frontier  is  at  Terijoki,  thirty-three  miles  away,  but 
there  are  no  frontier  formalities,  as  a  perfunctory  glance  is  given 


66 


ALL   THK    RUSSLAS 


FINLAND 


67 


at  your  baggage  in  the  station  before  the  train  starts.  There 
is  no  fear  of  much  smuggling  from  a  high-tariff  country  to  a  low- 
tarifT  one.  SmuggHng  between  the  two  countries,  as  1  shall 
point  out  later,  plays  an  important  political  part,  but  it  is  all  the 
other  way.  Almost  the  only  thing  you  may  not  take  freely  in 
your  baggage  into  Finland  is  spirituous  liquor.  Even  from  the 
train  you  soon  remark  a  difference  between  the  two  countries. 
Russia  is  a  land  of  plains,  broken  by  occasional  great  rivers.  Fin- 
land is  a  land  of  "  rocks  and  rills,"  covered  with  masses  of  granite. 


A  Coiintrv  lli>iisi'  in  I'mliind. 

an  astonishing  proportion  of  its  surface  water,  and  tlie  train  runs 
for  hours  past  two  unbroken  lines  of  ])ine-woo(ls.  And  man's 
handiwork  shows  as  much  difference  as  nature's.  The  wooden 
houses  of  the  peasants,  as  well  as  of  the  better  classes,  are  neat 
and  pretty,  mostly  painted  red;  they  are  always  in  good  repair, 
the  fences  in  order,  the  gates  sound  and  closed.  The  whole  coun- 
try, in  fact,  looks  well  cared  for— the  home  of  hard-working 
people,  prospering  thriftily.  And  one  curious  and  characteristic 
detail  strikes  the  traveller  before  he  alights.     In  Russia  official 


' 


notices  of  every  kind  appear  in  Russian  only.  The  Russian  of- 
ticially  ignores  the  existence  of  foreign  languages  even  where 
foreigners  mostly  congregate.  If  you  do  not  know  Russian  there 
is  but  one  thing  to  do — learn  it.  Finland,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
cosmopolitan,  for,  to  begin  with,  it  is  bilingual.  Finnish,  that 
strange,  soft  cousin  of  the  Oriental  T^Iagyar  tongue,  is  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people;  Swedish  is  spoken  in  all  the  towns  and  by 
everybody  above  the  status  of  peasant.  And  the  notices  to  pas- 
sengers in  the  railway  carriages  are  in  six  languages:  Finnish, 
Swedish,  Russian,  English,  French,  and  German. 

Neatness,  and  modest  self-respecting  prosperity,  are  even 
more  noticeable  in  the  towns  than  in  the  country  districts.  Vi- 
borg,  the  first  important  place  you  reach  in  the  journey  from 
Russia  to  the  capital,  is  hardly  a  real  Finnish  town,  for  it  is  the 
commercial  link  betw^een  Finland  and  Russia,  and  a  large  pro- 
portion of  its  merchants  are  Russians  and  Germans,  and  Rus- 
sian is  spoken  currently  in  commercial  circles.  The  main  line 
of  railwav  runs  throu^'h  it;  the  branch  to  the  north  is  onlv  a  few 
kilometres  awa}-;  its  s])]en(li(l  harl)our  is — exce])t  in  winter — the 
chief  maritime  inlet  and  outlet  of  the  country;  and  the  great 
Saima  Canal  leads  from  the  head  of  its  bay  deep  into  the  multi-- 
ttidinou?  water-way?  of  the  interior.  Needless  to  say,  there  is  a 
sti'oiig  Russian  garrison  here,  and  over  ilie  strange  old  slab- 
sided  Gothic  castle,  liuiU"  by  tlic  Swe(li>h  Governor  Knut>on  in 
1293,  Hies  tlie  little  Russian  "  war-tlag."  The  approach,  too.  is 
guarded  b\'  sexeral  nicnlern  forts  upon  islands  in  the  haw  fur 
Russia  is  open  to  attack  from  this  side  and  takes  her  precautions 
accordingly.  Viborg,  thus,  apart  from  its  Castle  and  round- 
house, is  commercial,  modern,  Russo-German  Finland;  it  is  not 
genuine  Finland,  either  of  our  time,  like  Helsingfors,  or  of  all 
time,  like  the  villages  and  up-country  towns. 

Eight  hours  in  the  train,  through  almost  unbroken  pine- 
woods,  with  hardly  a  town  of  any  importance  the  whole  way, 
bring  you  to  Helsingfors,  and  here  you  are  really  in  Finland  of 


6>^ 


Al  1.     I  HI      Kl  ^M  AS 


to-clav.     'llic  I'lnii  li:i-  :ni  cnllm-ia-tic  admiration  [, .r  liu'  cajnial 
t  his  coiimrv,  wliK-h  ooiiU  In-  luiluau-  ii  ii   had  n^i   m.  -(u.d  a 


o 


ha. I.  oi   m^tihcation.      IikKhmI.    1    dmihi    i!  an>    ui    ihr  .-apual^  ..1 
the  woi-Kl  which  cuuiit  ihcir  a-c  by  cciuuric-  and   ihcir  iiiha1)i- 


ijr^  ■-.  '■*■-. 


L  a 


Tlu'  Cii\    AiKl   iLui^"Ur 

:^  h\-  million^,  evoke  ^ludi  a  |)atri<aic  ap])reciatir.!i  n^  \hv<  httle 
phiee  ('!  S:;,oou  j)ci»i)le  which  oiil)  I'cuan  !<•  v\!-t  ni  !*-  ].ia-rin 
fdi-ni  \\ii!iin  tlu'  lifetime  of  -nnie  imw  h\in,u'.  In  ccrtmn  re-])ects 
i  ha\e  nc-\cr  ^ren  an\  c]i\  like  ii.  It  appear-  to  ha\r  no  -Inin-, 
no  rookerk-,  no  t umhle-down  (h\clhn--  (»I  the  poor,  iiu  criminal 


I-INLAM) 


r. 


9 


quarter,  no  (hrt.  1  (hd  not  s])ecially  searcli  for  tliese  thinp:>,  h'lit 
I  wandered  almoin  a  cr^ofl  deal  dnrin^L:-  a  week'^  .^tay.  and  i  did  iiut 
<ee  them.  And  1  could  not  lind  them  from  the  top  of  Oh-erxa- 
torv    llill   with  a  liel<l--la>b.     Down  the  centre  of  the  city  run.> 


o 


t  }!L'lsinj:fors. 


the  wide  h:-p]anadc.  all  -ardeii^  and  trees,  with  fine  houses  upon 
one  Mde.  and  a  truly  metropolitan  ran.c-c  of  ^lioj)^  and  huiel-^  u])on 
the  other.  In  the  middle,  stands  the  bronze  ^tatue  of  the  poet 
Kuneberc^.  l)v  his  >on.  and  i^raven  on  its  pedestal  is  the  national 
son<-  he  wrote.     Every  May  the  students  of  the  University  p;ather 


\ 


70 


ALL     IML    RUSSL^S 


about  his  feet  and  sin^  iii>  words— or  at  least  they  used  to  do  so; 
perhaps  this  is  forhichlen  now.  ddie  spirit  and  metrical  vii^our 
of  Runebero's  poetrv  are  adnnrably  shown,  l)y  the  way,  ni  the 
following-  spirited  translation  of  "  Tlie  March  of  the  Biorne- 
boro-ers."  in  the  e>:act  metre  of  the  peculiar  orii^inal,  line  for  line 
— a  poem  now  forbidden  to  be  sung-  in  Finland: — 

Sons  of  a  race  whose  blood  was  shed. 
On  Narva's  field;  on  I'oland's  sanel  ;  at  Leipzig;   Luizen's  dark  hills  under; 

Not  yet  is  Finland's  manhood  dead  ; 
With  foemen's  blood  a  field  may  slill  be  tinted  red. 
All  Rest,  all  IVaee.  Away!  bej^one  ! 
The  tempest  loosens;  lii^htnin.i^s  fiasli  ;  and  o'er  the  field  the  cannon  thunder; 

Rank  upon  rank,  march  on  !  march  on  ! 
The  spirit  of  each  father  brave  looks  on  as  brave  a  son. 

No  nobler  aim 

Could  lii^iit  us  to  the  field  ; 
Our  swords  are  tlame  ; 

Nor  iiew  our  blood  to  yield  ; 
Forward  each  man,  brave  and  bold! 
Lo!  the  i;lorious  path  of  I-'reedom,  centuries  old  ' 

Gleam  high  !  tiiou  bannc-r  \'ictory-seaknl  ! 
In  the  grey  bygone  days,  l(Mig  since,  all  battle-worn, 
Be  still  our  splendid  colours,  though  tattered,  onward  borne  ! 
Of  Finland's  ancient  Standard  there's  yet  a  shred  untorn. 

Never  shall  our  fathers'  ground 
He  reft  by  force  from  out  the  arms  of  soldiers  who  have  never  bled ; 

Never  shall  the  word  go  round 
That  Finns  to  their  free  Northern  home  were  traitors  found. 

The  brave  can  only  do  and  die 
Not  backward  turn  at  danger's  threat ;  nor  shrink  ;  nor  quail ;  nor  bow  the  head! 

Be  ours  the  warrior's  fortune  high 
To  fall— we  only  plead  for  one  last  Victory  ! 

Take  sword  in  hand ! 
Rush  gladly  on  the  foe ! 

Die  for  our  land. 
So  Honour's  life  shall  grow! 
Untiring  pkmge  from  fray  to  fray. 
The  present  time  is  ours— 'tis  now  the  harvest-day ; 
Thinned  ranks  as  splendid  witness  show 


FINLAND  71 

To  Valour's  daring  deeds,  our  land  that  save  and  ward  ; 
On  with  the  grand  old  banner,  that  never  battle  scared. 
Around  the  staff  still  gathers  its  faithful  Finnish  guard.* 

Above  the  Esplanade  is  the  hill  whereon  stands  the  observa- 
tory and  the  fine  well-known  group  of  "  The  Shipwrecked  "  by 
the  sculptor  Stigell.  From  this  height  the  splendid  bay  and  har- 
bour spread  out  before  you.  On  the  town  side  these  end  in  rows 
of  neat  warehouses  and  railway  lines.  A  little  way  out  is  the  pict- 
urescjue  Yacht  Club,  on  an  islet,  and  farther  on  is  the  group  of 
island  fortresses  around  Sveaborg — the  "  Gibraltar  of  the  Baltic," 
with  its  6,000  Russian 
troops  and  900  guns. 
This  was  the  scene 
of  the  treacherous  sur- 
render of  the  Swed- 
ish Admiral  Cronstedt 
to  the  Russians  in 
1808,  and  of  the  un- 
snccessftd  attacks  of 
the  Allies  during  the 
Crimean  \\\ar. 

Helsingfors     has 
many  imposing  buildings  for  so  small  a  city,  the  best  placed  be- 
imr  the  Lutheran  church  of  St.  Nicholas  in  the  Senate  Square, 
raised  upon  its  little  granite  hill  and  reached  by  fifty  wide  steps. 
Jt  may  be  seen  behind  the  monument  of  Alexander  II.  in  my 
illustration  on  p.  /T,.     This  monument — also  by  the  younger 
Runeberg,   and   erected   by   the  Finnish   people  in    1894 — is  a 
proof  of  how^  easy  it  has  been  for  Russia  to  enjoy  the  devotion 
of  the  Finns,  for  on  the  anniversary  of  the  Emperor's  assassina- 
tion or  fete-dav  it  is  surrounded  bv  wTcaths  and  memorial  em- 
blems  of  their  grateful  affection.     The  University,  another  fine 
building  accommodating  2,000  students,  is  named  after  Alex- 

•  T/ie  Times,  January  8,  1 90 1. 


The  Diet  House,  Helsingfors. 


'  H 


-3«      --■'    *    ■^ 


7'2 


ALL    rilE    RLSSL\S 


FINLAND 


73 


ander  I.,  and  his  \m>{  occupies  ilie  ])]ace  of  huiiuiir  m  ilic  Aula. 
But  to  the  visitor,  especially  just  now,  the  most  interesting^  build- 
ings are  the  Senate  House,  with  its  magnificent  salle,  where  the 
Emperor,  if  he  came,  would  open  the  Diet;  RuUhirhusct,  the 
great  panelled  hall,  its  walls  covered  with  the  escutcheons  of  all 
the  knightly  members  of  the  Diet,  where  the  knights  hold  their 
session;  and  Stdmlcrkusct,  the  Estates'  I louse,  with  its  three  halls 
where  the  representatives  of  the  clergy,  the  bourgeoisie,  and  peas- 
ants sit  during  the  rare  meetings  of  the  Diet.  There  is  nothing 
remarkable  in  the  architecture  of  these:  they  are  simple,  modern, 
and  dignified,  but  to  the  stranger  from  a  land  of  representative 

instituti()n>  they  are 
fraught  with  the  in- 
terest and  patlios  of 
some  noble  and  his- 
toric landmark  .sinking 
slow]}-  into  the  soa.  . 
'Hie  first  inifireb- 
sK  sii  of  "1  IcKinki." 
liu\\c\ei",  i.s  one's  la-l  ; 
surprise  and  admirn- 
tioii  at  llu-  niUTpri-c 
a!id  \!,L:*'i;r  by  winch 
SO  poor  and  -inali  a  ])eople  have  made  of  their  capital  so  civilised 
atid  ^o  progressive  a  niofjern  city.  Forty  years  ago  Helsingfors 
h:i  I  in!\  jo.nru)  mli al  itants,  to-da\  it  has  more  than  four  times 
that  iiniiilier.  :\U(\  a-  I  h:i\r  :tire;iii\  rciiiarkeu,  1  know  ui  no  capital 
ciiv  in  tlie  w-rM  winch  Mirfiasses  it  in  (a'der,  cleanliness,  convcni- 
ener  and  all  tiie  externals  at  m<  Mica-ii  ei\  ili-aii«  ni.  i  he  ^i  reets  are 
pcrfectlv  kept,  and  little  electrie-cnr-,  ni'-'del-  <»!  ilaai  knid.  iin'- 
nisli  rapid  and  comfortable  tran-p^n  ir-,  all  parts;  r*hu'ati<»n  ni  all 
branches  of  knowledge,  for  both  ^excs,  offer-  every  theoretical 
and  material  opportunit}- ;  the  Post-office,  to  take  one  exa.niple 
of  government,  is  the  best  arranged — not  the  biggest,  of  course 


TIa*   Bu!uh-!^'   ('h.inila'!-. 


—I  have  ever  seen,  our  post-offices  In  the  great  provincial  towns 
of  England,  where  the  whole  of  Helsingfors  would  be  but  a  parish, 
l)eing  but  barns  in  comparison;  and  on  the  table  in  my  sitting- 
room  at  the  Hotel  Kamp  was  a  telephone  by  which  I  could  con- 
verse with  all  parts  of  Finland.  All  these  things  are  the  signs 
of  good  citizenship,  the  more  to  be  admired  as  it  has  grown  upon 


I  iiiLmd "^  Love  for  Alexander  II. 

The  anniversary  of  his  assassination. 


no  rich  soil  of  nnlnnitcd  natural  resources  and  vast  easily  acquired 
wealth,  but  has  l)een  cultivated,  like  the  Spartan  virtues  of  orig- 
inal Xew  England,  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks. 

What    the    Finns    have    accomplished,    however,    cannot    be 
adequately  appreciated  without  a  comparison  of  certain  extraor- 


{    I 


■'M 


/4 


ALL     rm      KLSbiAS 


diiiarx'  statistics  ff  laiiil  aii«l  pc<»|)]i'.  I  lu'  art/a  <  a'  l'in]an<l  is 
373,000  sciuarc  kilometres,  ot  which  a^  many  a^  41,000  arc  mlaiid 
water.  Xo  fewer  than  J50  ri\er>  lluw  into  the  Hahic.  And  only 
twentv-cii^iit  per  cent,  of  the  superlicial  area  of  the  conntry  p*)>- 
sesses  a  i)opulation  of  more  than  ten  ^onls  to  the  square  kilometre. 
That  is,  seventy-two  per  cent. — say  threc-cpiarters,  of  iMidand — 
is  virtually  umnhahited,  while  the  remaining-  (fiiarter  ha-  a  density 
of  onl\-  J3.5  inhabitants.  At  the  >amc  date  a>  ihe.-e  staii-iic-  the 
iiei_L:hl)(  inriiiL:  ctuiiitiac-  <•[  lU'iiinarlx  h;itl  0( )  iii.h;i]  iilai!!  -  In  ihe 
square  kilometre,  l\u>.-iau  I'uland,  O3,  and  the  Go\crnmcnt  of 
Moscow,  ()/,  while  Id-ancc  had  jj.  Ccnnan} ,  So.  Ildriand.   14^). 


and    r.cluinni,   JO' 


dhc   c'Xtraordiiiarx'   ])Overi\-   ariil  >U'niii\'   *>} 


the  land  could  not  he  more  cloqucntU'  I'-id.  \d;i  ihi<  jionr  land 
and  >catlcred  ioll-..-^ wilh  i^wrxihing  liut  w  n,n!  and  waUTiali-  de- 
nied tn  tlkni  ly  nature,  and  handicapped  by  one  of  the  worst 
climates  of  land-  where  people  live  at  all, — exported  in  iSuR  no 
less  than  t8u,uou,uuu  irancs'  worth  of  natural  and  manufactured 
produce — nearly  £3  worth  per  head  of  the  total  population! 
There  need  be  few  bounds  to  one's  admiration  and  respect  for  the 
Finnish  race. 

The  aspect  of  Finland  is  shown  by  the  foregoing  figures  as 
plainly  as  by  any  illustrations  of  Finnish  landscapes.  It  is  a  land 
of  pine  forest,  of  rock,  of  river  and  lake.  Nature  has  but  these 
three  colours  on  her  palette  there,  and  the  only  difYerence  be- 
tw^een  one  landscape  and  another  depends  upon  which  of  the 
three  predominates  at  any  particular  place.  The  typical  land- 
scape— the  composite  Finnish  portrait,  so  to  speak — is  seen  when 
all  these  elements  are  present  in  equal  prominence,  and  the  hu- 
man t  u  tor  is  superadded  in  the  shape  of  a  little  patch  of  culti- 
\'aU'd  hind  around  a  cluster  of  wooden  buildings.    Thi>  combina- 


tion \>  preci->i'i\  :^lio\\  n  111  <  mk-  <  a  ww  i hn>irations,  ^catteicd  >}jruce 
and  hr  trees  where  you  ,-tand,  cliriL^in.i;-.  a<  tliese  trees  alone  can. 
to  the  thin  earth  1  between  the  out  cr<  >])-  of  ^ramte  luiKide:  heb  )W, 
in  the  shelter,  the  cleared  land,  marked  oft  1)V  snakedence>  which 


FINLAND 


IS 


recall  a  land-cape  in  Virginia;  a  stream  or  two,  emptying  into 
a  lake  which  is  connected  with  another  and  thus  again  with  an- 
other until  a  irreat  chain  is  formed;  beyond  and  around,  hills  clad 


The  rinni<;h  l,:ind^c:ipe-^Mnunuin.  l.ake.  Fr^rcjst,  Field. 

tliick  with  spruce  and  fir.  ddiat  is  Finland,  where  man  inhal)its 
it  at  rill.  Sometimes  the  forest  predominates,  as  in  the  north 
and  west,  again,  the  whole  country  appears  to  be  lake  and  bog, 
and  the  onlv  terra  firma  is  the  long  narrow  road  between  two 


,    »i 


•» 


)k 


4j^^9\^*»»-^^    ,>4«4'^< 


'6 


A  LI.   rill    ki  5.^iAb 


sheets  c^f  water;    e1-c\\]icre  yonr  cye-^  and  car:=  perceive  notlnni; 
but  ila^^hlnL;a  roarini;~  stream. 

1  ha\'e  spoken  of  the  "  waterfall-  "'  a^  one  of  tlie  t\\(*  natural 
resources  of  h'inhuul  hut  thi-  r>  not  -ti  ictl\-  accin-atc.  'I  hen^  i>  not 
a  real  waterfall  in  iMnland — onl\  rapi(l>.  Imatra  it>eh',  the  show 
place  of  the  (irand  Dnchx  .  the  Mecca  of  the  toun-t  an<l  tlie  en\-}' 
of  the  en<nneer.  is  a  tliousand  \ard>  of  rockv,  roaring-  rapids.  d1ie 
niap:nificent  physical  atlas  of  the  country. receruly  ptil)lishe(h  shows 
some  700  rapids,  a  lars^e  ])rop()rtion  of  which  are  suitable  for  hy- 
draulic development  for  industrial  purposes,  or  the  production  of 
electrical  energy.  A  large  number  of  rapids  liave  l)een  thus  de\  el- 
oped, and  it  is  certain  that  such  enterprise  will  extend  greatly  dur- 
inir  the  next  few  vears.  For  not  onlv  is  this  the  cheapest  possible 
power,  but  it  is  ])eculiarly  suited  to  the  one  industry,  for  which 
Finland  possesses  natural  supi)lies,  which  will  soon — by  the  ex- 
haustion of  similar  supplies  elsewhere — be  unrivalled.  1  mean 
the  manufacture  of  wood-pulp,  and  cellulose  (chemical  wood- 
pulp)  for  making  paper,  cardboard,  etc.  Finland's  forests  are  as 
yet  hardlv  touched,  and  she  has  a  vast  area  of  them.  An  oiTicial 
estimate  assigns  forty-six  per  cent,  of  the  entire  area  to  forests — 
a  superficies  of  thirty-seven  and  a  half  million  acres,  or  5S.500 
square  miles.  In  i89()  it  was  calctilated  tliat  these  forest:-  con- 
tained jj,3()^'),jSo  large  tree^.  and  _v  ^-7  ' ---5' ^ '  -mailer  trees, 
still  good  encMigh  for  >awing.  Miicli  of  \\\\<  \<  unaxailable  for 
commercial  |)in'pose-  until  the  jiriei'  (tf  w^khI  aiiil  pnl])  ri-e-  cr>n- 
siderably,  for  at  present  price-,  it  1-  too  far  to  the  Xorth.  or  too 
remote  from  river  transport  to  pay  for  cutting  and  bringing  down. 
But  these  [)riccs  are  steadily  rising,  and  must  continue  to  ri-e, 
wdhle  to-day  Finland  has  forests  for  -ale,  intersected  by  streams 
for  floating  down  the  logs,  and  powerful  rapids  from  which  tens 
of  thousands  of  horse-power  can  easily  be  developed  to  grind 
them  into  pulp. 

Already  this  industry  has  taken  on  large  proportions.      In 
1865  there  were  two  pulp-mills;   in  1872,  six  more;   to-day  there 


f 


FIM  AM) 


/  / 


are  over  liuri)  .  In  1898.  iwcr.tv-fivc  pulp  mills,  employin-  i  .0:0 
men  pro,h,ce.l  50.894  ton?,  oi  tlie  value  nt  a  quarter  of  a  null'.un 
slerUn-^ncarlv  a  million  an.l  a  <iuartcr  of  dollars.  Besides  this, 
ciulu  cellulo>e'inill>  produced  13.296  tons,  value  £120.242.  and 
fourteen  paper  mills,  employing  2,828  men.  produced  32.022  umis, 
value  £;^2.7So.     in  fact,  to  so  preponderatino-  an  e.xtem  1^  ihis 


A  R'lad  in  Finland. 


the  chief  Finnish  indu_.iry  that  of  the  180  million.?  of  franc?  which, 
as  1  have  said,  was  the  total  value  of  Finnish  exports  in  that  year, 
no  less  than  110.000,000  francs  were  represented  by  wood,  pulp. 
and  paper.  In  view  of  the  ever-increasing  circulation  of  news- 
papers, which  depend  wholly  upon  pulp  for  their  supply  of  paper, 
and  the  facts  that  America  is  almost  denuded  of  her  pulp-wood 
forests,  that  Canada  is  using  up  her  supplies  at  a  great  rate,  that 


'J: 


78 


ALL    Till]    RUSSLVS 


Russian  wood  is  poor  in  (jnalii>-  and  remote  ni  >iinaii<)n,  and  that 
no  other  eounlry  has  an\'  fore>ts  of  this  nature  at  all,  the  ques- 
tion, where  is  ijuln  to  eonie  from  ten  vear.^  hence?  is  beconiiiiL' 
a  pressing  one  to  ah  who  have  to  supply  the  insatiable  maw  of 
the  newspai)er  i)ress.  To-day  in  iMidand.  if  you  know  where  to 
go  and  how  to  set  to  work,  you  can  buy  at  a  fair  price  a  powerful 
waterfall,  and  the  freehold  of  enough  forest  land  around  it  to  cut 
and  grow^  and  cut  again  enough  timber  to  keep  the  waterfall  at 
work  grinding  night  and  day  for  ever.  Finland,  therefore,  in  my 
opinion,  offers  an  excellent  opportunity  for  the  investment  of 
foreign  capital  in  this  direction.  Certain  fiscal  changes,  too,  which 
there  is  good  ground  to  believe  that  Russia  will  shortlv  impose,* 
will  place  this  industry  in   Finland  upon  an  even  more  advan- 


tageous tooting. 


See  Chapter  V.,  pa<;'e  ot.  f,u'tni>tc'. 


A  Finnish 

Mourning 

Stamp. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE    FINNS    AND    THEIR    NEIGHBOURS 

FOVM  races  have  struggled  unconsciously  for  predominance 
in   1-inland,  and   the   native  population  of  to-day  keeps 
soniethuig  of  the  impress  of  each  of  them ;    the  dark,  slender, 

poetic,  dreamy,  singing  Karelian,  who  Inrst  came 
to  colonise  it  over  the  eastern  border:  the  fair, 
broad-shouldered,    hard-working,    Tory    Tavast; 
his  cousin  the  real  Finn;  the  impulsive,  blue-eyed 
Swede  from  westward;  and  the  childlike  roaming 
Lapp  from  the  north.      But.  as  I  said  at  the  start, 
the  real  ancestor  of  the  Finn  is  his  climate.     He 
is  hardv  in  body  and  hard  in  temperament;  given 
to  silence;   laborious  and  conscientious;   with  many  virtues  and 
few  graces.    The  fact  that  he  makes  a  splendid  sailor,  tells  much 
of  hts  character,  as  it  causes  him  to  be  found  before  the  mast 
the  world  over— there  is  a  special  mission  to  Finnish  sailors  m 
San  Francisco.     He  steers  the  tar-boats  down  his  own  perilous 
rapids   with  the  daring  and  coolness  of  the  Indian  in  his  canoe; 
he  lives  as  frugally-and  for  the  same  reason-as  the  Highlander 
of  Scotland;  vou  cannot  help  but  trust  him,  but  it  is  often  more 
than  vou  can  do  to  get  him  to  talk.     His  agriculture  is  yet  ot 
the  most  primitive  character:    his  favorite  method  of  cultiva- 
tion, is  to  cut  down  the  trees  in  winter,  leave  them  to  dry  for  a 
season,  and  then  burn  them,  with  the  underwoods,  to  clear  the 
land   and  fertihse  it  at  the  same  time. 

Within  his  hard  shell,  however,  there  is  a  tender  kernel  of 
romance  and  playfulness  and  song.     His  immortal  epic  of  the 


!l 


I 


i 


80 


ALL    I  Hi:    RUSSIAS 


I)ast,  tlie  Kale\ala,  still  echoes  in  lii>  heart,  and  hi>  old  men  ehi>j) 
hands  and  sing  its  runes,  or  others  which  come  unbichlen  to  their 
lips,  in  thrihing  strophe  and  antistrophe.  On  W  hitstm-e\e,  his 
young  men  light  bonfires  and  make  merry  rotmd  them,  and 
Christmas  brings  out  his  candles  and  lir-trees  and  fat  fare.  But 
he  comes  out  of  his  shell  most  of  all  in  midsummer  for  a  Strcitgc- 
scvif",  or  Eisteddfod,  when  from  far  and  near  come  sim'im'--chil)s 
and  choirs,  to  l)e  judged  b\-  a  jury  of  their  elders,  in  the  cotu't 
of  a  green  glade,  before  an  audience  of  the  whole  countryside. 
Then  he  plays  cjuaint  childlike  games. 

To  one  wise  law  he  doubtless  largely  owes  his  freedom  from 
a  vice  which  cold  and  poverty  and  loneliness  and  oj^portunity 
have  (levelo|)e(l  to  a  terrible  degree  among  his  great  neighbours 
to  the  east:  the  sale  of  alcohol,  in  an\-  sliape  or  form,  is  abso- 
lutely prohibited  in  Finland  outside  the  towns.  A  iMnnish  coun- 
trvman  can  onlv  obtain  intoxicating  lifiuor  bv  o-oin<r  to  a  town 
and  bringing  it  back  with  him.  and  towns  are  few  and  distant, 
and  he  is  not  a  mobile  miit.  And  when  he  wishes  to  celebrate 
some  domestic  festi\-al,  and  like  Kuig  (  )laf"-  gue-t-.  to  *'  fea>t  late 
and  long,"  he  has  to  get  a  >peci:i]  ])olicf  pennii  for  ennii^h  -pirits 
to  entt/rtaiii  hi^  neiglilxanx  am!  dnnk  '"  Sfdhi!  to  ilu'  Xoi-ihJand. 
slcih!/ '^  lilxc  his  forebear-,  the  \ikiiig-  and  the  "  lujar\-  -kald-." 
Excc|)l  for  thi-  law  the  -nving-  b:iiil<  mi  Siii-nii  would  tell  a  dif- 
ferent arid  a  -orrier  tale. 

1  he  law  inakiTi  oi  1-niiand  li.iia-  al>o  been  ^tnkmgi\■  wi-r  ni 
all  that  n  la u  -  lo  education.  It  is  a  land  of  schools.  Except 
upon  the  eastern  frontier,  where  the  people  are  still  backward, 
exerybody  can  read  and  write.  The  total  population  in  1890  was 
2,380,140,  and  so  far  as  I  can  calculate,  no  fewer  than  540,412 
souls  were  attending  school.  That  is,  out  of  every  hundred  of 
the  entire  population,  something  like  twenty-three  were  actually 
at  school.  This  seems  an  extraordinarv  record,  taking  all  thingfs 
into  consideration.  There  are  2,608  university  students,  includ- 
ing women;    4.;_3  are  at  the  lycees;    private  schools  educate 


FIINNISH    AUKlCULlUKt-BURNING    THE    WOODS    FOR    A    SEED-BED.    . 


'-    ^»     -        -A 


•    .MbV*    •^**'« 


•  •  *  • 


i 


I  * 


THE    FINNS    AND     IHKIR    NKIGHBOLRS     83 

;.785;  primary  schools  contain  4i3'S67;  '' ur1)an  popular 
.^c1r)()1>  "  give  instruction  to  J5,93i  ;  and  "  rural  popular  schools  " 
to  72,991  •  normal  schools  are  preparing  1,881  teachers,  the  sexes 
being  of  about  equal  number;  and  private  schools  receiving  a 
subvention  from  the  State  have  7,7^5  children.  With  such  a 
foundation,  one  is  no  longer  surprised  to  read  the  long  list  of 
learned  societies  which  flourish  here — literary,  philological,  ju- 
ridical medical,  and  scientific.  One  of  these,  the  Society  of 
Finnish  Literature,  is  laying  the  world  under  obligations  by  the 
wealth  of  folk-song  it  has  discovered  and  preserved.  So  long  ago 
as  1889  it  had  a  collection  of  22,000  epic,  lyric,  and  magic  songs, 
13,000  legends,  40,000  proverbs,  10,000  enigmas,  2,000  runes, 
and  20,000  incantation  formulas. 

I  find  in  my  note-books  a  number  of  other  figures  about  Fin- 
land, some  of  them  eloquent  concerning  the  national  character 
and  achievement.  We  hardly  realise  >vhat  a  little  people  it  is 
until  we  see  the  fact  in  numerals.  Twice  the  whole  population 
would  still  be  half  a  million  short  of  filling  London.  Including 
the  capital,  there  are  but  three  towns  larger  than  \^iborg,  which 
has  only  24,569  inhabitants.  In  the  whole  country  there  are  only 
thirty-seven  "  towns."  There  are  but  461  Roman  Catholics  in 
Finland,  and  only  45,000  members  of  the  Russian  Orthodox 
Church,  and  these  almost  all  on  the  eastern  frontier  adjoining 
Russia.  Of  2,380,140  inhabitants  at  the  census  of  1890,  no  fewer 
than  2,334,547  were  Lutherans. 

The  public  debt  is  1 12,000,000  francs,  and  every  penny  of  this 
has  been  incurred  for  construction  of  railroads,  of  which  there  are 
1,094  miles  l)elonging  to  the  State,  and  T12  miles  of  private 
companies.  There  are  174  savings  banks — six  to  a  town,  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  many  of  these  "  towns  "  are  what  we 
should  call  villages — these  banks  have  124,245  depositors,  who 
possess  among  them  close  upon  70,000,000  francs  of  savings — 
that  is,  the  savings  banks  alone  have  on  deposit  popular  savings 
equal  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  entire  public  debt. 


>.  «•«•»«  A*  **,  ►■ 


i 


84 


ALL    Tin:    RUSSIAS 


The  people  who  can  show  facts  Hke  the>e  in  the  liard  con- 
ditions of  their  homehmd  must  indeed  l)e  welcome  citizens  in 
a  land  where  nature  is  lavish  and  men  are  still  lackini;-,  and  it  is 
astoundiu--  that  anv  rciynnc  lucky  enough  to  have  them  should 
take  stei)s  which  drive  them  away.  Some  years  a^o  there  were 
80,000  Funis  in  the  I'nited  States,  and  to-day  numbers  of  them 

are  emij^ratini;-  to  Canada, 
where  it  is  now  easier  for 
them  to  i^et  good  land. 

This  retlection  naturally 
leads  to  the  consideration  of 
the  one  matter  which  the 
Viu]]  rei^ards  as  of  xital  im^ 
portance  to  him — tlie  (pies- 
tmn  which  kcc}),^  the  Intle 
niirthern  land  ni  tlie  wiu-M's 
e\'e.  J  refer  lu  tlie  rela  • 
lions  1)i't\\een  tb.e  Grand 
l)uch\  and  the  ku>>ian  Mm  • 
pi  re. 

At  ])reserit.  a^  e\er\1)ody 
knows,  these  are  alnu>st  the 
worst  possible.  Twice  with- 
in the  last  few  months  I  liave  seen  a  capital  where  every 
woman  was  in  black.  One  was  London,  where  the  ])eople 
were  mourninu-  their  dead  Oueen;  the  other  was  llelsinofors, 
where  people  mourned  their  lost  liberty,  livery  woiuan  in 
Helsino-fors  bore  the  black  syrubols  of  ])ersonal  woe.  lint  i)er- 
sonal  protest  went  nuich  farther  than  this,  \\1ien  ( leneral  I'obri- 
kof,  the  Russian  Governor-Cieneral,  who  was  sent  to  carry  out 
the  new  rciiimc,  took  his  walks  abroad,  every  Finn  who  saw  him 
coming,  crossed  to  the  other  side  of  the  street.  When  he  i)atron- 
ised  a  concert  for  some  charitable  |)ur])ose,  the  Finns  bouiL^lit  all 
the  tickets,  but  not  a  siuHe  one  of  them  attended.     The  hotels 


Arhippaini  .Wiihkili.  t!ie  Finnish  Blind 

B.ua. 


THL:    FINNS    AND    THEIR    NKIGHBOLRS     85 

refused  apartments  to  one  of  the  Finnish  senators  ^vho  supported 
the  Russian  proposals.     By  the  indiscretion  of  a  porter  lie  se- 
cured rooms  at  one  of  the  principal  hotels  and  refused  to  leave. 
Therefore  the  hotel  was  boycotted  and  it  is  temporarily  ruined. 
The  Russian  authorities,  intending  to  make  the  Russian  lan- 
cuage  compulsory  in  all  government  departments,  invited  sev- 
eral young  Finnish  functionaries  to  St.  Petersburg  to  learn  Rus- 
sian under  very  advantageous  conditions  and  with  every  prospect 
of  official  promotion.     When  the  language  ordinance  was  pub- 
lished and  these  Finns  saw  why  they  were  desired  to  learn  Rus- 
sian   thev  immediately  resigned.     The  Russians  took  charge  of 
the  postal  svstem  of  Finland  and  abolished  the  Finnish  stamps. 
Thereupon  the  Finns  issued  a  '•  mourning  stamp,'"  all  black  ex- 
cept the  red  arms  of  Finland  and  the  name  of  the  country  m  Hn- 
ni.il  and  Swedish,  and  stuck  it  beside  the  Russian  stamps  on 
their  letters      The  Russians  retorted  by  strictly   torbiddmg  its 
sale  and  destrovmg  all  letters  which  bore  ,t.    Now  ,t  ,s  one  of  the 
curio^.tK-  of  philatclv.     On  the  last  anniversary  ot  liie  pumica- 
tion  of  the  Tsar's  manifesto  to  the  Finnish  Senate  concernmg 
the  modification  of  the  administration  of  Finland,  in  one  oi  tlie 
streets  a  black  sheet  was  displayed  on  which  were  inscribed  the 
names  of  those  Senators  who  voted  in  favour  of  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  Imperial  manifesto,  and  in  the  evening  the  windows 
of  the  houses  ,nhabite<l  by  Finns  were  hung  with  black  curtains, 
and  the  lights  in  the  rooms  extinguished.    .\  .leputation  of  ladies 
placed  a  mourning  band  on  .he  monument  of  Alexander  II.,  while 
groups  of  voung  men  made  a  round  of  the  town  and  compelled 
Russian  shopkeepers  to  put  out  their  lights.     They  also  forced 
their  way  into  Finnish  houses  in  order  to  extinguish  the  lamps. 
One  of  'the  bands  demonstrated  before  a  Russian  bookseller's 
shop  and  made  rough  music  outside  the  residences  of  some  Sen- 
ators, to  whom  threatening  letters  bearing  the  signatures  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Secret  Patriotic  Association  were  sent.*     So  the 

*  The  Times,  February  23,  1901. 


n 


1 


86 


ALL     I  Ml ;    RLSSLAS 


wretched  strn<;-c:le  cj;oes  on,  and  the  young-  Finn  turns  In's  eye?  and 
often  his  ste[)s  toward  the  Western  W'orlcL 

Xothinj^  could  be  easier  than  to  write  a  few  [)ai;es  of  chthyrani- 
bic  denunciation,  dechuani;-  one  side  to  be  wholly  right  and  the 
other  wholly  wrong,  and  1  well  know  that  J  shall  be  reproached 
in  no  measui*ed  terms  for  not  doing  so.  Moreo\er,  sweeping 
generality  is  much  more  convincing  than  discrimination.     Vet  1 


The  Rune-Sini^ers. 

find  mvself  unable  to  take  this  course.  The  riglit^  and  wrongs 
of  the  disptite  are  not,  so  far  as  1  can  judge,  thus  strictly  appor- 
tioned Like  most  right-^  and  wrongs,  when  disputes  rage,  they 
are  shared.  I  am  certain,  too,  that  only  harm  is  done  by  long 
and  bitter  discussion  of  the  relations  of  Russia  and  JMuland  at 
this  moment.  Idierefore  I  shall  write  brietly,  biu  frankly,  on 
this  painful  topic. 

There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that,  under  the  iMunish  Consti- 


)\ 


THl,    FINNS   AND     IHKIR    NKIGHBOLRS     8; 

tut.on    the  contention  of  the  Finns  is  right  and  that  of  tlte  Ku>- 
man<  wronsi.     In  the  Fundamental  Laws,  the  Order  on  the  Diet, 
para.-raph  71 ,  savs:    -  A  fnndaniental  law  can  be  institnted.  niodi- 
f,c<l  ■''explained,  or  alwhshed,  only  on  the  representation  ot  the 
F.nperor  aiul  (irand  Duke,  and  with  the  consent  of  all  the  Or- 
ders ••    That  is  clear,  and  it  is  final,  so  far  as  any  law  or  treaty 
can  be     Therefore,  when  Russia  insists  upon  modifying,  abohsh- 
i„g    or  introducing  fundamental  conditions  of  Finnish  national 
l^iewMout  the  consent  of  the  Finnish  Diet,  she  is  acting  illegally 
and  unconstitutionally.    When  Fmland  was  taken  from  Sweden 
and  annexed  to  Russia  m  ,809.  the  Tsar  Alexander  L  conferred 
,,po„   it_and  conferred  willingly,   and  from  conviction  of  the 
expediency  of  the  act-a  distinct  autonomy,  and  that  autonomy 
has  been  confirmed  l.v  the  Coronation  declaration  of  each  suc- 
ceedin.'-  Tsar.     Finland  has  done  nothing  to  show  that  the  con- 
cessioi^vas  unwise,  or  to  justify  Us  withdrawal.     She  has  been 
loval   she  has  raised  her  due  contingent  of  soldiers-a  very  small 
oi'ie  'it  nuist  be  allowed-and  she  has  paid  her  financial  contnbu- 
tion      Her  Constitution  is  now  practically  abrogated  by  the  de- 
cision of  the  Russian  Government  that  the  'fsar  ha^  power  to 
decide   what   law-  mn^t   be  subject   to  discussion   1./   the    I  .et. 
..,,,,1  ,,,,„  ,„av  be  put  ni  force  without  ^uch  d,>cuss,on  and  b  m- 
ni.h  cn„M>;u;,unal  acccpt.uice.      In  ihor  appeal  to  the   1  -ar  the 
members  of  the  Diet  point  out  "  that  a  law,  whether  tundamctal 
<,r  .■-cneral,  U,  be  valul  m  the  country  can  be  enacted  only  with 
the^approval  and  consent  of  the  Estates"  ;    that  "neither  the 
institutions  of  Russia  and  its  autocratic  system  ha^■e  been  intro- 
duced into  Finlan.l,  nor  have  they  had  any  force  there     ;    Utat 
the  Council  of  State  "  cannot  act  as  a  legislative  organ  for  Fin- 
land "  an.l  that  the  Imperial  manifesto  and  the  statutes  ba^ed 
upon  it  are  "  tnconsistent  with  the  right  of  making  their  own 
laws  which,  according  .0  the  Constitution  of  Finland,  belongs 
to  her  people."    There  can  be  no  question  of  the  historical  ac- 
curacy of  these  contentions. 


ss 


ALL    THi;    RLSSIAS 


The  chief  Russian  actions  of  which  the  Finns  complain  arc 
the  appointment  of  a  Russian  instead  of  a  T^innish  Secretary  of 
State,  the  takini^-over  of  the  h'innish  post-office,  the  announce- 
ment that  after  a  certain  future  date  Russian  will  be  the  lan- 
guage employed  in  all  official  departments,  the  severe  censor- 
ship and  suppression  of  newspapers,  and  the  institution  of  a  new 
law  of  military  service.  Of  these  it  is  the  last-named  which  has 
brought  something  like  despair  into  the  (irand  Duchv. 
It  was  stated  on  good  authority  that  this  proposal,  when 
laid    before    the    Russian    Council    of    Ministers    some    three 


Finnish  Tvp;*s. 

montlis  ago  by  General  Kuropatkin,  ^Tini^-ter  of  War.  and  Gen- 
eral P>ol)rikof.  (iovern()r-(  ieneral  of  Mnland.  was  discussed  for 
four  hours  and  then  rejected  by  a  large  majority,  the  (irand 
Duke  X'ladimir  Alexandrovitch,  and  M.  de  W'itte,  Minister  of 
Finance,  both  voting  with  the  majority.  If  this  were  so,  the 
Tsar,  whose  decision  of  course  over-rides  that  of  the  Council,  has 
been  guided  by  his  military  advisers,  for  the  new  law.  in  a  some- 
what modified  form,  has  now  been  signed  and  officially  promul- 
gated, and  is  to  come  into  force  in  1903.  It  is  accompanied  by 
an  Imperial  manifesto  pointing  out  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Grand  Duchy  must  share,  in  comiuon  with  all  other  parts  of  the 


THE    FINNS    AND     I'HEIR    NEIGHBOURS     89 

Empire,  the  military  burdens  necessary  to  secure  the  unity  of 
the   Russian  arniv  and  the  national  defence.      Not  to  go  into 
needless  detail,  the  et=fect  of  the  new  law,  two  years  hence,  will 
l,e  t<i  abolish  the  post  of  Finnish  Commander-in-Chief,  to  abolish 
the  I'lnnish  armv  as  a  distinct  military  organisation,  and  to  dratt 
the  Finnish  recruits  into  Russian  regiments,  which  will  for  a  time 
have  a  specially  Finnish  character,  be  paid  for  by  the  Finnish 
exchcciuer.  and  be  liable  to  service  anywhere.     The  number  of 
recruits  will  be  fixed  by  the  Minister  of  War,  and  the  length  of 
service  will  be  eighteen  years— three  with  the  colours  and  fifteen 
in  the  reserve.*    Some  of  the  above  provisions  are  obviously  only 
temporary,  and  the  Imperial  intention  undoubtedly  is  to  make 
Finland  contribute  to  the  national  army  precisely  like  every  other 

part  of  Russia. 

Now,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  military  service  m  Russia 
will  be  intensely  distasteful  to  the  Finnish  peasant.     But  it  is 
<loubtless  e(iually  distasteful  to  every  other  peasant  of  the  Tsar's 
dominions.     No  pea.sant.  in  any  country,  enjoys  forced  military 
service.    The  Finn  will  suffer  rather  more  because  he  will  be  sur- 
rounded at  first  with  a  strange  language,  and  because  his  at- 
lachnKiU  to  his  home  is  greater.     The  blow  hits  him  linrder, 
also,  because  he  has  liiihcrio  enjoye.l  an  exemption  unkn<i\v!i 
to  Rus.sian  or  (lernian  or  Frenchman:   his  loss  is  the  withdrawal 
<,1  a  privilege,  rather  than  the  infiiction  of  an  injustice.     Why 
should  the  iMun.  alone  of  all  subjects  of  the  Tsar,  escape  the  jxr- 
sonal  burden  of  military  service?     I  confess  that  I  can  sec  no 
rea.son,  except  that  under  his  Constitution  he  is  thus  exceptionally 

favoured. 

'J'o  be  quite  frank,  the  charge  of  violation  of  the  Finnish  Con- 

♦The  \-,.:v,v  (>,■;«,<,.  in  commenling  on  ihc  new  Military  Service  Law  for  the 
C.ran.l  Duchv.  sagaciously  points  out  lh.at  as  the  existing  period  of  service  wtth  the 
colours  for  Russian  conscripts  is  five  years,  and  as  the  object  of  the  new  aw  .s  to  se- 
cure  umty  of  service  in  the  Russian  army,  this  particular  enactment  probably  pomts  to 
a  reduction  from  five  tothree  years  in  the  period  of  active  service  throughout  the  whole 
Russian  army.  — .l/.>™/«c  j"''^'.  -August  2.  igol- 


i 


90 


ALL     FHL    RUSSIAS 


stitution  is  met  ])v  one  simple  consideration.  As  a  matter  of 
plain  fact,  there  is  in  human  affairs  of  this  kind  no  such  thinij^ 
as  tinality.  Or  rather,  the  only  linal  thini;-  is  force  majcuvc — 
imperative  national  self-interest.  Before  that  all  i)romises  are 
air,  and  all  treaties  are  black  marks  on  white  paper.  1  i)ut  this 
brutally  (foreseeing  the  conse(iuences),  but  there  is  no  use  in 
mincino-  words.  Kverv  student  of  history,  politics,  or  di])lomacy 
knows  it  to  he  tlie  simple  truth,  and  every  coinitry.  not  Knssia 
alone,  affords  examples  in  proof.    Clerniany  hroke  her  promises  to 


\ilin. '11    Tiaps  in  tiiil.iiu! 

Denmark,  h'rance  hroke  her  pronli^e^  ahout  M,iil,ii;aM',ir.  io 
come  nearer  home,  1-Jii;ian(l  has  repeatedly  ])le(l,L;ed  lier>e]i'  to 
evacuate  Iv^vpt,  and  the  L'nited  States  was  .solemnly  pledged  to 
s^rant  complete  independence  to  C'uha.  None  of  these  jjled^es 
seems  likely  to  he  kept.  Therefore,  if  it  is,  in  the  jud.unient  of 
Russia,  an  imperative  condition  of  her  national  i)ros])erity  or 
security  that  her  relations  with  Finland  should  he  fundamentally 
altered,  she  will  only  he  followinij  the  ordinary  line  of  historical 
and  modern  precedents  by  breaking  her  pronn'.ses  and  tearing 


THE    FINNS    AND    THEIR    NEIGHBOURS     91 

up  her  pledges.     1  do  not  defend  the  principle— I  state  the  fact. 

••  Pitv  'tis,  'tis  true." 

And  who  is  to  be  the  judge  of  Russian  national  prosperity 
and  security?    Obviously,  Russia  herself— not  the  well-meaning 
foreigners  who  from  the  safe  comfort  of  their  libraries  hurl  their 
book^s  of  reference  at  her  head.     It  is  not  they  who  will  stop  the 
smuggling  across  her  frontier  from  Finland,  to  the  injury  of  her 
headly  taxed  manufacturers  and  merchants,  nor  they  who,  in  her 
hour  of  need,  will  increase  her  army  or  defend  her  western  fron- 
tier.   Russia,  like  Italv,  fara  da  sc.  and  like  every  other  sovereign 
Power  that  has  ever  grown  up  and  endured,  will  and  must  take 
all  the  steps  that  seem  to  Ik-  necessary  to  that  end. 

Having  said  so  much,  I  bow  before  the  storm:   but  one  or 
two  considerations  should  he  borne  in  mind  Ijy  those  who  will 
passionately  differ  with  me.     I  shall  not  be  accused  of  having 
failed  to  give  due  credit  to  the  Finnish  national  character  tor  the 
wonderful  progress  she  has  achieved,  but  let  it  be  remembered 
that   Finland  has  thriven  under  the  protection  of  the   Russian 
sword.     She  has  borne  virtually  no  burden  of  national  .lelence. 
If  ^he  had  been  independent,  and  obliged  to  be  ready  to  mobilise 
an  armv  or  a  tleet  at  any  time  for  her  own  protection,  her  budget 
would  have  presented  a  d.ft-erent  aspect.      iMoreovcr,  the  high 
tariff  country  ha^  protected  the  low  lanlt  country.     The  hmn 
has  thriven  under  a  vcrv  low  scale  of  customs  dutK-,  while  Ins 
Russia.i  neighbour  an.!  competitor  has  ha<l  to  meet  the  demands 
of  a  high  one.*     Living  is  cheap  in  Finland;    that  is  one  01  the 

•The  Russian  Government  decided  long  ago  to  assimilate  the  Finni-h  larilT  to  that 
of  Russia.  Germany,  which  exports  to  Finland  ahout  /2.000.000  worth  of  goods  an- 
nually,  naturallv  viewed  the  proposed  change  with  alarm,  l«t  although  th.s  question 
of  the  Finnish  tariff  was  not  mentioned  in  the  commercial  treaty  between  the  two  gov- 
.rnments.  the  following  arnangement  was  concluded  by  an  exchange  of  notes.  Kttssta 
undertook  to  permit  Finland  ,0  maintain  its  tarifl  unaltered  untd  December  3  ,  .898, 
after  which  date  the  difference  between  the  Finnish  and  Russian  tariffs  m.ght  be  re^ 
duced  by  50  per  cent.,  after  December  31.  IPOI,  by  75  per  cent.,  and  the  two  tariffs 
may  be  made  identical  after  December  3..  IW-  Up  to  the  present  time,  however,  no 
change  has  been  made. 


^ss 


t 


f 


'H 


92 


ALL     IHL    RUSSIAS 


reasons  why  so  many  Russians  spend  half  the  sunnncr  and  half 
their  ineomes  there.  Cii;ars  cost  a  (juarter  of  what  they  eost  in 
Russia:  every  daily  sunnner  resident  takes  hack  a  pocketful  every 
morning.  All  Finnish  produce  enters  the  <^reat  Russian  market 
under  a  differential  duty — that  is,  ])ractically,  with  a  botnity. 
Russian  mantifacturers  cannot  compete  in  h^inland  with  the  i)r()d- 
uce  of  England  or  (iermany.  h'inally.  as  things  are  now,  Rus- 
sia reallv  believes  herself  vulnerable  to  a  foreign  foe  coming  z'la 


A   nnnJMi    W'l'Jvlin',:  :    Tlu-   I'rki/s   I'lwci    ■  ^n   Lcavnu;    ilome. 


iMiilaiid.  Ill  hi'!-  \-R'\v.  nati'.  Mial  ^ecuril}  lULaiL-  niiaiar}  aiai  i'liicr 
nniticatiiui.  1  ha\-c  las  c<  .mpricnce  to  sn\-  wiietlier  tlii-  view  is 
rii-lit  or  wruiii-.  1  unlv  >a\  thai  kii>>ia  hold-  ii,  and  thai  >fil!CN 
the  fjiK'sttdn. 

'I'luTc  lia^  hci'ti  ])ail  |iri  H-cdnrc  ^n  li^illi  ^ii'r-.  aiiil.  a<  in  tlie 
case  of  the  hen  and  the  et^-i;-.  il  i>  hard  lo  sa\-  which  came  hr-t. 
Russian  a(hiiinislrat(irs  in  h'inland  ha\e  eoniniitled  hhmder  after 
blunder  of  tact,  have  uiveii  offence  where  none  need  have  been 


THI-.    FINNS    AND    THKIR    NKIGHBOURS     93 

given  have  nee.Uesslv  woun.led  the  national  sentiments  of  a  proud 
and  stnhhorn  people.  The  Fintis  have  shown  themselves  so  ,n- 
transi-em.  so  careless  <if  Russian  feelings  and  needs,  so  hostile. 
in  {-ACU  tis  to  put  weapons  ni  the  han<ls  of  those  who  declare  them 
to  he  reallv  enemies  of  Russia.  1  repeat,  therefore,  that  tio  true 
friend  to  I-'inlaiKl  will  seek,  under  these  circumstances,  to  embitter 
her  relations  with  Russia. 

if  this  remark  be  justified,  it  applies  especially  to  those  among 


A  r.;in..li  W.vl.lin-    Veiliiv^  th;  DowereJ  Bride. 


I,-  ^vho  are  .MAavs.  assuredly  with   the  best  motives,  ready  to 

.i,.„  n.cn.onal.  at'.d  iiold  imetings  and  found  societies  to  protest 
',,?,„„;  ,bc  man.t-cmcnt  bv  other  nations  of  their  own  ailairs. 
or  tu  stun.non  .,ur  own  government  to  redress  wrongs  for  y.rnctt 
i,  i.  not  responsible,  dhe  share  of  responsibilitv  fur  the  Crnnean 
W-.ar  whtch  the  Soc.elv  of  Friend-  un.loubtedlv  mcurred  by  us 
nn.leadntg  deptttation  to  Nicholas  1..  should  be  a  warttntg.  Ihe 
meetinn-s'hel.l  and  the  letters  written  to  the  late  Isar  concerning 


I 


l\ 


J-^ 


92 


ALL     IHi;     RISSIAS 


reasons  whv  so  main'  Russians  >{)cn(l  half  llic  >unniK'r  and  lialf 
their  incomes  there.  C  ii^ars  eo-t  a  (|uarter  of  what  they  cost  in 
Russia:  e\erv  dailx'  sunnner  resident  takes  hack  a  j)oeketfnl  e\ery 
iiiornini;-.  AH  h'innish  proihice  enters  the  i^reat  Rirssian  market 
under  a  (hlTerential  duty — that  is,  praeticaUy,  with  a  bounty. 
Russian  manufacturers  camiot  compete  in  h'inland  with  the  i)r(td- 
ucc  of  haiuland  or  (iermanw  Mnallw  as  thiuijs  are  now,  Rus- 
sia  reahv  heHexes  herseh"  vuhierable  to  a  foreign  foe  comini;"  rai 


A  Finnish  W.dvlui.;;    ilk  Bride's  Prayer  on  Leaving  Home. 


hlnland 


tinihcal  It  '!L 


lu-r  \-iew,  national  ^eniritv  nTcnn-  tnilitarv  and  other 

)etence  to  sav  whether  this  view  is 


ia\'e   ih  )  i'<  ill i! 


■ettles 


riLdu  <  >r  wrfMii:;.     T  on]\'  <a\'  thai    i\n--ia  rnMiU  n.  aiid  iha 
the  questi»  ii 

ThiTi'  lia-  luHTi  I'itd  prijccdurc  <ai  l)<)lli  >i(le-,  and,  a.^  ni  the 
case  of  the  lien  and  the  e.^-u'.  it  i-  liard  In  ^av  wliich  cnnie  fir-t, 
Russian  a(hnnii-trat(  ^r-  in  h'nilaial  haxe  i-«  anniit  led  bhiiiner  afier 
bhtnder  of  tact.  ha\'e  uuen  olTence  where  none  need  ha\c  been 


THK    FINNS    AND    THKIR    NKIGHBOURS     93 

given,  have  nee(he»h-  wounded  the  national  sentiments  of  a  proud 
and  stubborn  ])eo])lc.  Th,  hdnns  have  shown  them>elve^  so  iu- 
transi^.ent,  so  carele..  of  Russian  feelin-s  and  needs,  so  hostile, 
in  fact^  a.  to  put  weapon^  m  the  hand>  of  those  who  declare  them 
to  be  reallv  enemies  of  Russia.  1  repeat,  therefore,  that  no  true 
friend  to  iMuland  will  >eek,  under  these  circumstances,  to  embitter 

her  relatic^ns  with  Russia. 

If  this  rcnun-k  he  iusiificl.  it  applies  especially  to  those  amoni 


cr 


A  Finnish  Wed.ling:  Veiling  tlie  Dowersd  Bii 


u.  who  are  always,  asst,reclly  with  the  best  motives,  ready  to 
sign  memorials  nn^l  hoi.l  ,neetings  and  found  societies  to  protest 
a<.a,w:  Hu-  manaijement  by  other  nations  of  their  own  atfatrs 
or  to  -u..i^.-:  -„■  ..un  government  to  redress  wrongs  for  which 
it  is  no,  responsible.  The  share  of  re^pouHi.lr.y  lur  iIk  Crimean 
War  .Inch  the  bno.tv  < ''  l-'ncna-  unduuhicllv  incirrcd  by  us 
„,V;„ln„aqn,tntion,oXu-h.,laO.,sh<n,Ml.ea.ar„,ng.      Ine 

„eeun.-hcia  a.ul  ihc  Icu-r^  wnucn  lo  the  laie  Tsar  coiK-ernm^' 


94 


ALL    im:    RIJSSIAS 


tlic  treatment  of  Jews  in  Rnssia  come  nnder  the  same  catec^ory. 
hi  this  case  it  might  have  been  thought  that  the  spectacle  of 
the  great  Hebrew  financial  houses  lloating  gigantic  Russian  loans 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  deter  Christians  from  ste})ping  in 
where  the  co-religionists  of  the  oppressed,  indispensably  power- 
ful in  their  own  sphere,  would  not  tread.  To  have  plunged  into 
war  to  avert  or  avenge  the  sufferings  of  Armenia,  with  all  Iiu- 
rope  ranged  against  such  a  course,  would  have  been  an  act 
fraught  with  extreme  national  i)eril,  from  which  we  were  happily 
preserved,  though  there  were  many  who  urged  it  upon  us.  And 
the  continual  and  often  ignorant  *  denunciations  of  Russia  for 
her  action  in  Finland  is,  in  my  opinion,  ecjually  futile  and  unwise. 
The  desirabilitv  of  minding  one's  own  business  is  as  i>reat  in  inter- 
national  relations  as  in  private  life,  even  though  good  people 
often  lose  sight  of  it.  And  let  us  not  forget  that  Russians  dis- 
like and  resent  abuse  and  denunciation  precisely  as  much  as  we 
do  ourselves,  and  are  just  as  apt  as  we  are  to  stiffen  their  l)acks 
in  consequence  of  it. 

In  conclusion,  there  is  one  more  consideration  which  those 
who  raise  the  loudest  cries  of  illegality  would  do  well  to  ponder. 
Russia,  as  one  of  her  leading  statesmen  remarked  to  me.  might, 
with  perfect  ease  and  safety  and  in  all  the  odour  of  perfect  legal- 
ity, al)S()rb  the  whole  of  b'inland  next  nKuith.  and  wi])e  it  off  the 
map  as  a  separate  entitw  This  would  be  the  sim|)le  process. 
P^rst,  she  announces  that  slic  with(h-aws  from  all  {irotection  over 
Finland  and  grants  to  the  former  (irand  I)uc1i\  absolute  and 
complete  national  independence.  Then,  as  the  i)resence  of  an  in- 
dependent and  [)ossil)ly  hostile  State  upon  her  exposed  frontier 
would  be  obviously  incompatible  with  her  national  securitv,  she 
marches  an  army  cor|)s  into  Finland  and  annexes  the  country — 
lock,  stock,  and  barrel.  White  to  play — mate  in  two  moves. 
There  would  be  a  huge  outcrv,  but  anvbodv  who  knows  anv- 

*I  read  in  a  recent  issue  of  a  leading  London  daily  paper  the  statement  that  Russia 
had  suppressed  the  use  of  the  Finnish  language  throughout  Finland! 


THK    FINNS    AND    THKIR    NKIGHBOURS     95 

thing  of  contemporary  Europe  knows  that  not  a  finger  would 
be  raised  to  stop  her.  And  I  do  not  see  an  American  fleet  steam- 
ing up  the  Baltic.  Thus  Russia  could  get  all  she  wants,  and 
infinitely  more  than  she  is  asking,  without  transgressing  for  an 
instant  or  by  a  hair's  breadth  that  sacred  formal  legality  in  which 
laws  and  lawyers  often  perpetrate  injustice  everywhere. 


V-'^ 


-■-.,•44 


":"Aiiiliw&tii£  :■:»;' 


?iiiiiiMSE''''-. 


A  Finnish  Pearl  Fisher. 


^\ 


*  -- »    *-■- 


■*■•*-*         <% 


THK    SIGNIFICANCK    OF    SIBERIA 


97 


SIBERIA 


CHAP  IK  R    VI 

THE    SIGNIFICANCK    OF    SIBERIA 

ANY  account  of  Siberia  should  1)cgin  with  the  words,  ''  Once 
upon  a  time."  for  it  must  sound  like  a  fairy-tale.  The 
little  beginnings,  when  the  tn\st  Tsars  of  Moscow  authorised  the 
first  expedition  across  the  L'rals;  the  ])rivate  family  that  hnanced 
it;  the  \^olga  boatman,  become  pirate,  his  life  forfeited  for  his 
crimes,  who  led  it;  the  vast  distances,  the  awful  climate,  the 
strange  peoples,  the  unsurpassed  heroism  of  these  ])ioneers;  later 
on,  the  magnihcent  diplomacy,  the  hue  strategy,  the  perfect  in- 
sight which  outwitted  d^atar,  Tungus,  Manchu,  and  Jesuit  alike; 
the  military  tenacitv  which  stuck  to  what  diplomacy  won.  even 
when  England  and  France  allied  tried  to  take  it  away;  after 
the  con(|uest,  the  development;  first  furs,  then  gold,  then  wheat, 
then  coal,  and  now  at  last  the  greatest  railway  in  the  world  and 
possibly  the  eventual  mastery  of  the  Far  K:\st  behind  the  snort 
of  the  locomotive — there  is  not  in  history,  so  far  as  1  know,  a 
chapter  which,  being  fact,  breathes  such  an  air  of  fairy-land. 

So,  once  upon  a  time,  there  dwelt  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Volga  a  man  named  Vassili,  the  son  of  d^imothy,  the  son  of  Atha- 
nasius  Alenin  the  carter,  earning  his  hard  l)rea(l  by  towing  boats 
up  the  great  river.  Fie  was  nicknamed  "  the  millstone,"  because 
he  ground  the  corn  for  his  comrades — Yermak.  A  man  (^f  iron 
physique  and  primitive  passions,  the  lonely  l)oats  were  at  his 
mercy,  so  he  became  a  pirate  and  nuirdered  their  owners  and 
plundered  their  cargoes.     At  last  the  terrible  tales  reached  the 

96 


ear  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  who  decreed  his  death  and  sent  a  force 
to  hang  him  and  his  band  of  Don  Cossacks.  Up  the  highway 
of  the  Volga  they  ded,  till  on  the  banks  of  the  Kama,  not  far  from 
the  foothills  of  the  Ural  IMountains,  they  came  to  the  abode  of 
a  rich  family  of  settlers  and  traders  named  Stroganof,  who  at 
that  very  moment  were  casting  envious  eyes  across  the  range 
to  the  land  of  Yugra,  whence  the  Ostiaks  brought  such  precious 
sables.  In  Yermak  the  Stroganofs  saw  the  man  they  needed. 
They  furnished  him  with  money  and  arms,  he  gathered  a  motley 
crew  of  adventurers  round  him,  and  on  New  Year's  Day,  1581, 
he  started.    That  was  the  beginning;  the  railway  to  Port  Arthur 

is  not  the  end. 

Yermak  was  a  fox  in  cunning  and  a  lion  in  fighting.  His 
perils  were  endless  and  his  sufferings  terrible.  One  by  one  his 
old  Cossack  comrades  of  the  Volga  wxre  slain  by  his  side,  and 
at  last  he  was  literally  caught  napping  by  his  chief  enemy,  the 
blind  Tatar  chief,  Kuchum,  in  a  camp  on  the  banks  of  the  Irtysh 
River,  and  after  cutting  his  way  to  the  water  was  drowned  wdiile 
trving,  like  the  old  boatman  he  was,  to  swim  to  safety.  But  be- 
fore this  he  had  carried  the  twodieaded  eagle  of  Byzantium, 
which  Ivan  the  Terrible  had  just  adopted  for  the  blazon  of  Mos- 
covy,  almost  as  far  as  the  site  of  Tobolsk;  he  had  bartered  the  key 
of  a  new  empire  for  the  Tsar's  pardon;  he  was  a  prince  and  wore 
a  mantle  sent  him  by  the  Imperial  hands;  he  had  set  Russia's 
goal  immutably  in  the  East.  Moreover,  although  Kuchum  killed 
him  in  the  end,  he  had  seized  the  old  man's  capital  two  years 
before,  and  made  it  a  centre  of  Asiatic  trade  for  Russia.  This 
capital  was  called  Sibir,  and  it  has  given  its  name  to  live  million 
squares  miles  of  Russia  in  Asia.  Henceforth,  therefore,  let  us 
pronounce  the  first  syllable  of  Siberia  short. 

After  Yermak's  death  the  absorption  of  Siberia  proceeded  as 
steadily  as  water  trickling  down  hill.  The  loadstone  was  ever  the 
sable,  and  as  fast  as  one  district  was  stripped  of  its  furs,  rumours 
of  the  wealth  of  the  next  drew  the  pioneers  on.     Sometimes  furs 


t 


^1 


98 


ALL   THK    RUSSLAS 


THK    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SIBERL^ 


99 


were  scarce,  at  other  times  the  Cossacks  hned  their  coats  with 
sable.     The  Httle  l)aiuls  of  explorers  built   themselves  cimoz^ic, 
winter  quarters  of  wood,  and  gradually  the  soldiery  followed  and 
erected  their  ostrogs,  wooden  blockhouse  forts,  near  l)y.    Terrible 
suffering  was,  of  course,  common;   starvation  and  frost-bite  took 
their  yearly  toll;  more  than  once  it  is  recorded  that  men  ate  men 
in  their  extremity;    one  expedition  had  to  abandon  twenty-four 
soldiers  with  frozen  feet  ui)on  an  ice-bound  river,  which  engulfed 
their  corpses  in  the  spring.     Ikit  ever  the  movement  spread- 
now  by  individual  enterprise,  now  by  Government  aid,  now  in 
spite  of  Government  opposition.     Heroism  against  nature  and 
natives  alike  became  endemic.     Russia  pushed  steadily  on.     To- 
bolsk, near  Kuchum's  deserted  capital,  was  founded  in  1587;   the 
next    great    river,    the    Yenissei,    was    reached,    and    Yenisseisk 
founded  in  1620;  the  Lena  discovered  and  Yakutsk  built  in  1632. 
Irkutsk,  on  the  Angara,  close  to  its  outlet  into  Lake  Baikal,  dates 
from    16:;  I,   and   ])efore   thi^    to  the   north,    Dcjnef   had   sailed 
through  Bering's  Strait  in  1648,  Cossacks  had  made  their  appear- 
ance on  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk  in    \(^^(k  Poyarkof  had  found  the 
Amur  in  1644,  and  in  1650  Khabarof  had  cai)tured  the  town  of 
Albazin,  to  the  north  of  the  Amur,  and  founded  at  the  junction 
of  the  Ussuri  and  the  Amur  the  town  now  called  Khabarofsk, 
he  being  the  first  Russian  to  come  into  contact— which  meant 
conflict— with  the  Chinese.     Thus  in  seventy  years  after  Yermak 
had  started  to  cross  the  Urals  for  the  unknown,  fur-bearing  land 
of  ''  \Yigra,"  Russia  had  extended  right  across  Asia,  northward 
as  far  as  the  inaccessible  Arctic  regions,  southward  to  the  borders 
of  China,  and  eastward  to  the  l)ank  of  the  mighty  river  which  falls 
into  the  Pacific.     In  the  north  the  expansion  continued,  for  in 
1697  Atlasof  conquered  Kamchatka;  but  a  sudden  check  came 
to  the  eastward  and  southern  advance  by  the  pusillanimous  treaty 
of  Nertchinsk  in   1689 — the  one  occasion  on  which  Russia  has 
been  a  victim  to  that  venerable  bogey,  the  military  power  of  the 
Chinese.     This  was,  by  the  way,  the  first  convention  between 


Chinese  and  any  western  nation,  and  by  it  Russia  lost  the  Amur 
and  her  access  to  any  useful  part  of  the  Pacific  seaboard. 

For  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  tide  was  stayed  in 
the  Far  East,  while  Russia's  energies  were  sapped  and  her  vigour 
rudely  tried  by  events  at  home.  The  race  of  Rurik  had  become  ex- 
tinct; the  false  Demetrius  had  desolated  the  country;  the  family 
of  Romanoff  had  finally  established  itself  on  the  throne  of  Mos- 
cow at  the  moment  of  Russia's  direst  need;  Moscow  itself  had 
been  burned  and  occupied  by  the  Polish  enemy;  the  land  had  been 
a  ])rev  to  insurrections.  The  Romanoffs  saved  Russia,  but  it  was 
long  before  they  had  any  strength  to  spare  for  her  far  frontiers, 
and  even  the  colossal  energy  of  Peter  the  Great,  though  he  was 
sensitive  enough  to  the  pull  of  the  eastern  loadstone,  was  almost 
monopolised  by  the  task  of  lifting  Russia  into  line  with  her  west- 
ern neiirhbours.  Nine  Russian  rulers  came  and  went — four  of 
them  were  women,  one  was  a  child,  and  the  reigns  of  all  but  two 
were  very  short — before  Russia  resumed  her  eastward  march. 
But  when  Alexander  I.  had  hnished  his  successive  wars  with 
France,  Austria,  Sw-eden,  and  Turkey,  when  Nicholas  I.  was  not 
yet  plunged  into  the  war  in  the  Crimea,  the  moment  arrived,  and 
with  it  the  man.  The  sudden  elevation  in  1847  of  the  young  Gen- 
eral Muravief,  Governor  of  Tula,  to  the  post  of  Governor-General 
of  Eastern  Siberia  —  an  act  of  administrative  genius  on  the 
part  of  Nicholas  I. — closed  the  period  of  Siberian  ecli])se  which 
had  begun  a  hundred  and  forty-eight  years  before  with  the  Treaty 
of  Nertchinsk,  and  opened  the  brilliant  chapter  which  leaves  Rus- 
sia to-day  with  a  naval  base,  an  army,  and  a  railway  at  the  gates 
of  Peking.  As  Yermak  was  the  hero  of  the  first  chapter,  so 
Aluravief  is  the  hero  of  the  second — he  left  Siberia  in  1861  — 
and  his  statue  at  Khabarofsk  looks  down  with  proudly  folded  arms 
upon  as  splendid  a  piece  of  creative  statesmanship  as  modern  his- 
tory records.  He  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  in  spite 
of  the  frequent  doubts  and  hesitancies  of  his  sovereigns,  the  mach- 
inations of  his  many  and  bitter  enemies,  and  the  vast  natural 


■s. 


A 


\\ 


lOO  ALL   THL    RUSSLAS 

difficulties  of  his  task,  he  reahsed  it  to  the  Ml  for  after  his  retire- 
ment his  work  proceeded  ahiiost  mechanically  to  its  conelt,s.on 
He  founded  Petropavlofsk.  on  the  Tacific  coast,  in  .849.  fort.hed 
it  an.l  enal,le<l  it  to  heat  off  trunnphantly  the  lui^Hsh  and  hrendi 
fleets  in  1854-the  onlv  Russian  success  of  the  Crmiean  W  ar.    lie 
established  Nikolaiefsk.  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amur,  ni  1850,  and 
in  1858  concluded  with  China  the  Convention  of  A.gun,  which 
eave  Russia  eastward  all  the  territory  from  the  Ussun  River  to 
the  sea  and  carried  her  southern  houiulary  where  for  the  present 
it  remains-at  the  Korean  frontier.     In   i860  he  selected  her 
great  naval  base  of  Vladivostok,  its  name  meaning  -  the  dominion 
of  the  East."    The  rest  was  automatic.    On  ^^larch  17,  1891,  an 
Imperial  rescript  ordere.l  the  construction  of  the  (Ireat  Siberian 
Railway:    on  March  27,   1898,  Russia  obtained-nommally  as 
'•  lease  and  usufruct,"  but  really  for  ever  and  a  day-the  railway 
terminus  and  impregnable  naval  fortress  of  Port  Arthur,  com- 
manding by  land  and  sea  the  only  practicable  approach  to  the 
capital  of  the  Chinese  Empire.    The  fairy-tale  is  told. 

I  have  not  taken  this  rapid  glance  at  Siberian  history  because 
the  history  of  Siberia  possesses  intrinsically  greater  interest  or 
importance  than  the  history  of  any  other  part  of  the  Russian 
Empire.     It  is  to  illustrate  and  emphasise  a  vital  principle  of 
Russian  life  as  essential  to  a  correct  comprehension  of  her  past 
and  an  intelligent  anticipation  of  her  future,  as  the  prmciple  of 
autocracy  or  the  character  of  her  people.    This  is,  that  as  Rus- 
sia was  Oriental  in  her  origin,  so  she  moves  to  the  Orient  by 
innate  and  congenital  compulsion.     Only  while  Peter  the  Great 
indulged  his  dream  of  rivalling  the  West,  and  while  Russia  was 
distracted  and  exhausted  by  internal  disorder  and  external  ene- 
mies, was  this  natural  process  stayed.     It  has  been,  it  is,  and  it 
always  will  be.  her  normal  development:  in  the  eyes  of  her  strong- 
est men  it  is  her  divine  mission.    A  seaman  would  describe  her 


THK    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SIBERIA         101 

course  as  "  east  half  south."    In  her  blood  is  the  irresistible  mys- 
terious Drang  nach  Osten;  like  Man  himself  she — 

Perhaps  act.s  second  to  some  sphere  unknown, 
Touches  some  wheel,  or  verges  to  some  goal. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  sea  alone  stopped  the  Cos- 
sacks in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  when  they  got  to  work 
again  in  the  nineteenth,  the  Russians  crossed  the  Pacific,  and 
pushed  on  to  within  a  few  miles  of  San  Francisco,  long  before 
the  first  ■•  prairie  schooner  "  sailed  over  the  plains.    The  map  of 
Asia  is  a  Russian  step-ladder :  the  Urals,  Western  Siberia.  East- 
ern Siberia,   Baikalia,  Kamchatka,  the  Amur,  Manchuria;    the 
Steppe:  Khiva,  Turkestan,  the  Merv  Oasis.  Bokhara.  Samar- 
kand ;  these  are  the  rungs  she  has  climbed.     Persia,  Kashgar.  Af- 
ghanistan. India  itself— unless  a  mightier  force  than  herself  bar 
the  way.  her  feet  will  be  here  too  in  the  fulness  of  time.     The 
"  half  south  "  in  her  course  is  shown  by  the  gradual  descent  of 
her  naval  base  in  the  Far  East :  Petropavlofsk,  Nikolaiefsk,  Vladi- 
vostok, Port  Arthur.     If  you  would  understand  Russia,  and  in- 
terpret and  forecast  aright  the  march  of  great  events,  never  forget 
that,  for  her,  eastward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way;   that 
as  the  sap  rises,  as  the  sparks  fly  upward,  as  the  tides  follow  the 
moon,  so  Russia  goes  to  the  sunrise  and  the  warm  water. 


^ 


i 


':» 


w 


CHAPTER    VII 
THE    GREAT    SIBERIAN    RAILWAY 

AT  present  there  is  no  direct  connection  between  St.  Peters- 
bur-  and  the  Siberian  Railway,  but  a  direct  line  is  under 
construction.    Moscow  is  the  western  terminus,  and  a  tram  leaves 
for  Irkutsk  every  afternoon.     This  is  the  ordinary  slow  tram, 
consistnig  ch.etlv  of  third-class  carriages,  with  one  second-class 
and  half  a  first-class,  and  a  ukuI  van.     It  makes  a  direct  connec- 
tion with  Irkutsk,  but  passengers  have  to  change  more  than  once. 
Through  travellers,  and  almost  all  who  go  far  mto  Siberia,  ex- 
cept the  poor  and  the  colonists-who  have  fourth-class  trams  to 
thL„selves-take  the  ,raw  dc  luxe  which  leaves  Moscow  everv 
Saturdavata.,uartcrt,.nmc,..   M.     Tins  ,servK-e  ,s  per.ormed 
by  four  trains,  known  as  Nos.  .,  -'.  and  3.  which  are  purely  Rus- 
sian and  the  train  of  the  International  Sleeping  Car  C  ompany 

The  Siberian  Express  is  still  a  novelty  m  Russia,  and  people 
come  to  the  station  to  inspect  its  luxurious  appointments  and 
witness  its  departure.    The  Siberian  station  is  the  tmest  in  ^los- 
cow,  with  an  imposing  white  fa.ade-"  God  Save  the  Isar     m 
permanent  gas  illumination  over  the  entrance-spacious  halls, 
an  admirable  restaurant,  and  a  series  of  parallel  platforms,  which  . 
make  one  think  sadly  of  certain  great  London  termini.    At  the 
farthest  of  these  stan.l  in,  unusually  large  an<l  heavy  corrulor 
carriages  and  a  powerful  engine.     As  always  in  Russia,  a  crowd 
of  uniformed  officials  is  on  hand;  a  brilliant  light  pours  through 
the  little  windows  high  up  in  the  flat  sides  of  the  carnages;   the 
locomotive  is  only  purring  softly,  but  somewhere  in  the  tram  an 
engine  is  at  work  at  high  speed,  for  there  is  a  cloud  of  escaping 

1  /  \0 


THE    GREAT    SIBERL-^N    RAILWAY        103 

steam,  a  stream  of  wood  sparks,  and  a  shrill  buzz;  and  a  chatter- 
ing laughing,  crying  crowd  is  at  each  entrance  taking  long  leave 
of  ihose  going  far  away.  Three  strokes  of  the  bell,  big  men 
with  swords  kiss  each  other  fervently,  a  whistle,  a  snort  of  the 
engine,  an  answering  whistle,  and  the  train  is  off  into  the  night 
on  its  unbroken  journey  of  3.371  miles,  to  the  far  confines  of  that 
land  whose  name  was  recently  only  a  synonym  of  horror. 

The  Russians  are  very  proud  of  their  Siberian  tram.     They 
told  me  at  every  chance  that  1  could  never  have  seen  such  a  tram 


A  Siberian  Locomotive. 


—that  there  is  nothing  so  luxurious  and  so  complete  in  the  world. 
This  is  a  mistake  of  tact— it  rather  causes  one  to  look  for  short- 
comings, and  little  failings  look  larger  in  the  light  of  these  boasts. 
Moreover  the  Siberian  Express  needs  no  puff;  from  almost  every 
point  of  view  it  is  a  marvellous  achievement,  though  the  train 
Itself  is  not  so  wonderful  as  Russians  think.     It  differs  enough, 
however   from  all  other  trains  dc  luxe  to  be  worth  a  detailed  de- 
scription.   The  first  engine  I  noticed  was  built  in  France,  all  the 
rest  were  Russian,  and  some  of  these,  with  four  large  driving- 
wheels  coupled  together,  were  extremely  powerful.    These  were 
freight  engines;  in  fact,  after  the  line  enters  Siberia  all  its  engines 
are  freight  engines;  the  train  is  a  very  heavy  one.  the  speed  ,s  low. 
and  passenger  engines  will  not  come  until  the  line  is  complete 
and  a  great  effort  is  made  to  shorten  the  entire  journey.     Be- 


) 


t 


y  % 


:\ 


102 


104 


ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 


hind  the  locomotive  comes  a  composite  car,  tlie  forward  part 
beiiiR  the   locked  luggaoe  compartment,  and  the  after-section 
bein^^r  the  kitchen.     Between  the  two  is  the  electricdi-ht  plant, 
for  the  entire  train,  even  to  the  red  tail-lamps,  is  li-hted  by 
electricity.     This  plant  is  an  illustration  of  the  enterprise  Rus- 
sian engineers  are  showing  in  every  direction.    Steam  is  supplied 
by  an  ordinary  upright  boiler,  but  the  dynamo  is  run  by  a  tmy 
Laval  steam  turl)ine— the  same  Norwegian  tirm  that  makes  tl^e 
familiar  milk  separators-^revolving  at  an  cnormou.s  spee<l.     This 
turbine  makes  the  shrill  note  that  is  audible  whenever  the  train 
stops  after  dark,     ddie  electric  plant  was  not  out  of  order  for  a 
moment  during  my  doul)le  journey,  and  the  trains  were  lighted 

magniticently. 

The   second  carriage   contains   the   sleeping  <iiiarter>   of   U-^e 
cook>  and  waiters,  the  pantry  and  the  reMauranl,     1  li!>  i-  a  car 

which  fnniicrlv  served  as  a  royal  >ak)nn,  and  it  i-  in  no  way  Mined 


lur  :*  dinnig-car 


I  contains  two  Uailin 


:i  piano.  Three 


tables  >eatin£r  fi'iir  person^,  nm 


a 


l.-urd  tables  abuiiL  eigh- 


teen inches  square.  In  ilie  front  part  of  this  car  there  is  also  a 
full-sized  bath,  witii  shower,  and  an  exercising  machine,  some- 
thing like  the  crank  in  our  prisons,  which  you  make  more  or  less 
laboriou:^  by  adjusting  a  weight.  The  third  and  fifth  cars  are 
second-class,  and  the  fourth  first-class. 

Except  ill  two  points,  there  is  virtually  no  difference  between 
the  two  cla==:cs,  aitimugli  of  conr^c.  a-  el^ewliere,  or,  rannT,  iiuich 
more  than  cl-cwhere,  you  are  Ic-s  likcj\'  to  find  objectioininle 
ccmipainiins  m  the  one  than  \i\  tiie  oilier.  '1  riere  ib  a  thruiigii 
enrnuor  al  tin;  ^ide,  arid  -1  \  e«  >inp;iiai]u;!its  for  l.uii-  |u.'r-on<  and 
one  for  two  |)ersons  in  tlic  second--cla>>,  and  ilna-e  larger  com- 
partments and  one  small  one  in  the  first -cla^^-.  (  hie  eif  the  ad- 
vantages which  the  first  has  over  the  second  i>  tliat  in  the  former 
the  centre  of  the  car  is  an  open  salon,  with  sofa,  easy  chairs,  writ- 
ing-table, clock,  and  a  large  map  of  the  Russian  h:m])ire.  This, 
when  it  does  not  happen  to  be  monopolised  by  a  i)arty  playing 


THK    GRKAT    SIBERL\N    RAILWAY        105 

cards,  is  certainly  dehghtful,  and  1  have  seen  nothing  like  it  else- 
where, except  in  the  private  car  of  an  American  railway  magnate. 
Both  first  and  second-class  have  one  improvement  over  similar 
trains  elsewhere,  which  cannot  be  too  highly  commended.     All 


A  inrtv  of  Ru^^an  Engineers  in  the  Primeval  Forest. 


the  upholstery  is  of  soft  leather,  and  all  the  walls  are  covered 
with  a  species  of  waterproof  cloth,  which  is  washed  at  the  end  of 
eacli  journey.  The  difierence  between  this  and  the  clotli  and 
plush  upholstery  of  other  trains,  which  soil  you  at  every  touch, 
and  fiing  clouds  of  pestilent  dust  into  the  air,  is  indescribable. 


i 


.,,^'»..— H-«--     ,    /I 


,o6  ALL   TMK    RUSSLAS 

The  Siberian    l-xpress.  however,   ^hows   more   improvement 
than  tliis      In  the  roof  oi  each  compartment  are   two  electric 
light,    one  of  which  is  ext,nt;ui>lied  when  yon  pnl!  tlie  curtain 
over  it  at  ni^ht.    There  i^  also  a  table  lamp  han-ms  "ii  the  wall, 
which  can  l)e  placed  anywhere,  and  an  excellent  movable  table. 
W-ith  these  two  vou  can  read  and  write  in  perfect  comfort.    Above 
your  head  are  two  levers:    one  admits  fresh  air,  through  wire 
gauze  to  keep  out  dust;  the  other  turns  hot  water  into  the  heat- 
in>.  apparatus.     There  is  a  pneumatic  bell  to  the  restaurant  and 
a,relectric  bell  for  the  servant.    The  beds  are  wide  and  very  com- 
fortable, and  the  whole  ..f  your  luggage  goes  m  the  racks  over- 
head     In  the  corridors  are  more  ingenious  filter-ventilators.  and 
outside  the  windows  are  plate-glass  tlanges,  so  that  you  can  look 
ahead  without  the  danger  of  a  spark  entering  your  eye.     Over- 
head   in  the  little  central  salon  and  in  the  dmmg-car.  is  an  elab- 
orate ventilator  to  be  filled  with  ice  from  outside  m  summer,  so 
as  to  admit  cooled  air.     The  corridor  also  contains  a  frame  to 
hold  a  large  printed  card  showing  the  name  of  the  next  station, 
the  time  of  arrival,  and  the  length  of  the  stop.     Finally,  there  is 
the  other  advantage  which  the  first-class  passenger  enjoys.    There 
are  no  brakes  on  his  carriage!    There  is  no  hand  brake,  as  on 
every  other  part  of  the  train,  and  the  Westinghouse  passes  under- 
neath him  in  its  pipe.    He  is  thus  undisturbed  by  the  grinding  and 
jolting  which  even  the  best-regulated  brake  produces,  and  can 
read  and  sleep  peacefullv  through  stoppages  and  down  grades 
and  hostile  signals.     This  is  surely  the  height  of  railway  con- 
sideration.   Such  luxury,  however,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  add, 
speaks  volumes  concerning  the  speed  of  the  Siberian  Express. 

This  train  is  the  result  of  study  by  Russian  engineers  of  the 
railways  of  Europe  and  America.  It  may  therefore  be  regarded 
as  the  fixed  type  of  the  Siberian  carriage,  and  I  have  described 
it  in  detail,  because  before  we  are  many  years  older  the  Sil)erian 
railway  will  be  one  of  the  great  passenger  routes  of  the  world. 
After  much  praise  I  may  venture  upon  a  little  criticism.    Rus- 


BA    OF^  JAPAN 


a: 

UJ 

aa 

Co 
I 

CO 

z 

X 


io6  ALL   TUl',    RUSSIAS 

The  Siberian    h'-xpress.  however,   >hows  more   ini,.rovement 
than  this      In  the  root  of  eaeii  eonipartnient  are  two  eleetnc 
lights,  one  oi  winch  ts  extu,KU»hed  when  you  pull  the  curtain 
over  it  at  ni^ht.    There  is  also  a  table  lamp  han-m.u  on  the  wall, 
winch  can  be  j.laeed  anywhere,  and  an  excellent  uunable  table. 
With  these  two  vou  can  read  a>ul  write  m  perfect  comtort.    Above 
vour  head  are  Uvo  levers:    one  adntUs  fresh  a,r,  through  wn-e 
gau.e  to  keep  out  dust:  the  other  turns  hot  water  into  the  heat- 
Lr  apparatus.     There  is  a  pneumatic  bell  to  the  restaurant  and 
„r.Mectr>c  bell  for  the  servant.    The  beds  are  wule  and  very  com- 
fortable, and  the  whole  of  your  h,g,Liage  goes  m  the  racks  over- 
head     In  the  corridors  are  more  ingemous  filter-ventdators,  and 
outside  the  windows  are  plate-glass  llanges,  so  that  you  eatilook 
ahead  without  the  danger  of  a  spark  entermg  your  eye.     Over- 
head   in  the  little  central  salon  and  m  the  <hnmg-car.  is  an  elah- 
orate  ventilator  to  be  tilled  with  ice  from  outside  m  summer,  so 
•,s  to  admit  cooled  air.     The  eorri.lor  also  contains  a  frame  to 
hold  a  large  printe.l  car<l  showings  the  name  of  the  next  station, 
the  time  of  arrival,  and  the  lengnh  of  the  stop.     Finally,  there  is 
the  other  advantage  which  the  first-class  passenger  enjoys.    There 
are  .to  brakes  on  his  carnage!     There  is  no  hand  brake,  as  on 
every  other  part  of  the  tram,  and  the  W'estinghouse  passes  under- 
neath him  in  its  pipe.    He  is  thus  undisturbed  by  the  gr.ndmg  and 
jolting  which  even  the  best-regulated  brake  produces,  and  can 
read  and  sleep  peacefully  through  stoppages  and  down  grades 
and  hostile  signals.     This  is  surely  the  height  of  railway  con- 
sideration.   Such  luxurv,  however,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  add. 
speaks  volumes  concerning  the  speed  of  the  Siberian  Express. 

This  train  is  the  result  of  study  by  Russian  engineers  of  the 
railways  of  Europe  and  America.  It  may  therefore  be  regarded 
as  the'f^xed  tvpe  of  the  Siberian  carriage,  and  1  have  described 
it  in  detail,  because  before  we  are  many  years  oUler  the  Siberian 
railway  will  be  one  of  the  great  passenger  routes  of  the  world. 
After  much  praise  I  may  venture  upon  a  little  criticism.    Rus- 


v> 


THE    GRl  AI     SIBKRIAN    RAILWAY 


1 09 


'a 


i 

i 


sia  has  in  tlli^  train  gone  somewhat  ahead  of  herseh'.  so  to  speak. 
It  is  not  enough  to  huiid  a  line  train— vou  must  educate  in  knowl- 
edge, and  more  especially  in  responsibility,  the  people  who  are 
to^vork  it.     The  dining-car,  for  example,  will  not  hear  a  mo- 
ment's comparison  with  that  of  the  Orient  Express  or  the  Rivie- 
ra Mxpress.     We  waited  interminable  times  for  our  meals.     One 
passenger  sat  at  table  fifty  minutes,  having  had  nothing  but  a 
plate  of  soup  and  being  unable  in  all  that  time  to  obtain  a  bottle 
of  beer.    Then  he  left  the  car  in  disgust,  and  in  a  loud  voice  de- 
manded the  complaint  book.    Result:  he  was  snowed  under  with 
apologies  and  waited  upon  like  a  prince.     If  the  dining  car  were 
properlv  arranged,  it  would  hold  all  the  passengers.     As  it  is, 
one  has  to  intrigue  and  struggle  for  a  table.     Again,  not  once 
after  we  left  was  one  of  the  station  and  time  cards  put  m  the 
frame      All  the  pneumatic  bells,  too,  were  out  of  order,  and  no 
waiter  could  be  summone.l.     When  I  ordered  a  bath  I  was  told 
that  the  pipes  were  inexplicably  stopped  up.     There  are  other 
matters  I  might  mention,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  add  that  some  of 
the  shortcomings  are  the  fault  of  the  passengers  themselves,  who 
are  not  yet  educated  to  the  use  of  the  facilities  so  lavishly  pro- 
vided for  them.    A  needless  inconvenience  is  that  all  the  lavatory 
arrangements  of  the  train  are  shared  by  the  two  sexes,  with  con- 
sequent delays  and  embarrassments.    The  greatest  disturbance, 
however,  to  the  foreign  visitor's  comfort  is  that  all  Western  meal- 
times must  be  abandoned  before  a  Russian's  daily  food-scheme. 
No  Russian  has  an  exact  sense  of  time,  the  lack  of  it  being  proba- 
bly attributable  to  the  Orientalism  in  his  blood.    Nobody,  indeed, 
could  have  one  on  this  train,  for  the  clock  keeps  the  hour  of  St. 
Petersburg  for  a  thousand  miles  or  more  of  due  eastward  travel- 
ling, in  order  that  its  time-table  may  have  some  semblance  of 
utili'tv  and  conformity :  then  as  the  days  pass  the  train  itself  grows 
ashamed  of  such  a  childish  pretension,  and  after  Chelyabinsk  it 
leaps  lightly  to  local  time  and  hurls  a  couple  of  useless  hours  out 
of  the  window,  so  to  speak— hours  that  make  no  record,  either 


1 1  ^^ 


K^ 


ALL    11 II      RLSSLAS 


oi  uial  -r  wnc.  against  any  of  us— two  sinless  hours,  two  joyiess, 
trark-  liitle  hours  tiung  forth  upon  the  brown  Siberian    u  ppes. 
As  for  a  Russian's  meaLtimes,  he  simply  has  none,     it  i  had  my 
tea  early  tlierc  would  be  the  invariable  nameless  of^cial  in  his 
dark-blue  uniform  piped  with  green  or  blue  or  magenta  cloth, 
xuiii  i  rossed  pick-axes  ui  iiammers  or  bill-hooks  on  his  collar  and 
cai),  hnishing  a  hdchis  made  into  the  shape  of  a  ciulii      lutilc 
^,j^^.,H-^iade!— or  thoughtfully  spitting  out  the  bones  of  a  fried 
carp  upnn  h\^  plate  while  he  selected  a  fresh  mouthful  with  his 
knife.    When  we  dined  or  supped  they  would  be  drinking  tea,  and 
once  when  we  went  into  the  restaurant-car  for  a  sandwich  about 
midnight  a  party  of  rugged-looking  men— not  officials,  for  once, 
but  of  occupations  which  their  strange  faces  did  not  allow  us 
to   presume— were   sitting   round   an    empty   cafcticrc   drinking 
champagne  from  tumblers,  a  saucer  in  front  of  them  piled  high 
witli  the  cardboard  mouth-pieces  and  ashes  of  many  dozen  cigar- 
ettes.   This  habit  of  eating  when  you  are  hungry  and  eating  what- 
ever you  may  happen  to  fancy,  instead  of  eating  when  the  cook 
wills,  and  then  only  what  custom  severely  restricts  you  to,  is  dis- 
organising in  its  effects  upon  the  refectory  of  the  train.     There 
is  no  time  to  sweep  up  and  set  tables;  no  time  when  the  servants 
can  feel  free  to  rest,  sleep,  or  eat;    no  time  when  the  wearied 
kitchen  fire  can  "  go  down  "  as  it  does  at  home.     The  result  is 
great  discomfort  for  Western  passengers,  and  the  authorities 
should  certainly  insist  upon  all  meals  being  served  at  fixed  hours, 
and  at  those  hours  only. 

The  story  of  the  inception  of  the  Great  Siberian  Railway  has 
been  told  many  times  (in  my  own  ^'  Peoples  and  Politics  of  the 
Far  East,"  for  instance),  and  all  that  need  be  recalled  here  is 
that  the  first  suggestion  of  it  came  from  an  Englishman,  and  that 
enterprising  Americans  were  the  first  to  lay  before  the  Russian 
Government  a  definite  offer  to  build  it  on  certain  terms.  Nat- 
urally enough,  Russia  decided  that  it  must  be  her  own  task,  but 


N 


Rl.AT    ^1B!-,R1A\     R  AHAV.W 


113 


it  was  a  long  time  before  she  could  face  the  tremendous  expendi- 

\ui\-  !!i\"ni\-f(|,  and  liui  until  lier  staic-nieiiA  kccu  foresight  per- 
cli\  t  (!  the  \ast  change  commg  over  the  Far  East  was  the  gigantic 
ciUer])ri>e  rcihiced  to  a  definite  project.  The  present  Tsar,  wiien 
as  Tsesarie\-ic]i  he  \\a>  irax'elHni;"  in  the  h^ar  hhist,  whcek'tl  the 
hr>t  harrow  and  laid  the  hrst  stone  of  the  railway  at  \  ladivostok 
on  May  U),  1891,  and  hi>  enthusiastic  support  has  assured  the 
success  acliieved.  The  speed  with  wdiich  construction  has  fol- 
lowed is,  considering  the  great  natural  difficulties,  without  par- 
allel in  raihvaydjuilding.  The  whole  line  was  divided  into  seven 
sections,  and  work  carried  on  u])on  them  so  far  as  ])ossil)le  siinuh 
taneouslw  The  Si1)erian  plain  presented  no  engineering  diffi- 
culties, since  for  a  thousand  miles  the  surface  does  not  show  a 
higher  rise  than  four  hundred  feet;  l)ut  as  all  wood,  water,  food, 
and  labour  had  to  be  supplied  from  the  base,  the  difficulties  of  or- 
ganisation were  very  great.  But  the  first  portion,  from  Chelya- 
binsk to  Omsk,  492  miles,  was  opened  for  traffic  in  December, 
1895;  the  second,  from  Omsk  to  Ob,  388  miles,  in  1896;  the 
third,  from  Ob  to  Krasnoyarsk,  476  miles,  later  in  the  same  year; 
the  fourth,  from  Krasnoyarsk  to  Irkutsk,  672  miles,  in  August, 
1898.  Thus  the  rail-head  reached  a  point  3,371]  miles  east  of 
Moscow,  and  as  the  train  had  also  reached  Khabarofsk,  on  the 
Amur,  from  Vladivostok,  the  eastern  terminus,  a  distance  of  475 
miles,  in  the  same  month  and  year,  a  total  of  2,503  miles  of  rail- 
way had  been  laid  and  opened  for  traffic  in  seven  years.  The 
Sil)erian  Railway  will  cross  altogether  thirty  miles  of  bridges, and 
of  these  the  line  to  Irkutsk  required  a  large  number,  including 
such  important  ones  as  those  over  the  Irtysh  at  Omsk,  700  yards, 
over  the  Ob  at  Krivoshekovo,  840  yards;  over  the  Yenissei  at 
Krasnoyarsk,  930  yards,  and  over  the  Uda  at  Nijni  Udinsk,  350 
yards.  Moreover,  before  reaching  Irkutsk  there  is  some  very 
stifY  grading  work  in  a  mountainous  country.  By  this  perform- 
ance Russia  holds  the  world's  record  for  railway-building.  She 
may  well  be  proud  of  it. 


1 14 


Al.l.     II IL.    KLbSlAS 


THE    GRKAT    SJBI-RIAN     RAILWAY 


The  train  Icavin-  Moscow  at  S.  1 3  on  Saturday  cvcnni^s 
reaches  Irkutsk-ai  lea..  ..  .It.l  when  1  travelle.l  by  a.  hut  the 
journey  is  being  ex,,e<hte.l  >o  oitett  that  the  t.nte-tahle  ts  seiaom 
aceura'te  for  .nore  than  a  tnonth  cr  two-at  713  >"  H'^'  »";'"- 
in.r  of  the  Motuhiv  week-.he  n.tnh  day.  The  average  spee.l  of 
the  Siberian  Express,  which,  it   .nu>t  be  retnetnbered,  is  much 


The  Railway  in  the  Urals. 


ii-i!i   that    'H 


[   iiu'   (trdiiiarx-    tr-tin 


from  AToscow  dailv  for 

r  tjir  tlitliM-i'iUH;  «.!  linu'  between 
cxTiitreii  iiiiU.-  an  iK'nr,  nichid- 


i/reatcr   Uian   ii 

Irkutsk,  i<.  thprcfore— a!!. 'w  11114  i- ^ 

We>t  and  l-a^t — ahii^M  exacti\   - 

incr  sloppa-e-.     A   few  ,ninn!e>-  Mu>!y  oi  a  ....Icn^d.  tune  tali 

u-iH  give   the   reader  niorc   information   than  much   de>cnplion. 

Here.  then.  i>  the  journey  at  a  gkmce: 


"5 


VKRSTS.*      STATION. 


HOUR    OF 

ARRIVAL. 


LAY. 


J/osC(>7i '-Kursk  Li/it\ 

Moscow 8.15    I'.M.    ^ 

o         1  u    r  Saturday 

93     Serpukhot 10.54  p.m.  J 

i8ii    Tuhi 1. 


A.M.  A 


7.09    A.M. 

8.59  A.M.      MiMiday 

10. 2q  i'.\L 


Suzrano-  Vyascmskaya   Line, 

239^    Uzlovaya 4.03  a.m.    '  Sunday 

382^    Riask   8.32  A.M. 

753     Penza 7.47  p.m.  ^ 

Orp.vt  Simerl\n   Railway. 

Sajnara-Zhitaoust  Section. 

I  1 1 8      Samara 

1155^    Kiiicl 

1609      L'fa 

I7g2^    \yasovaya 4.48  .\.m. 

1  gc8,\    ZialaousL 8.49  -^  -  'i- 

West  Siberian  Section,  \  I'uesday 

2059     Chelyabinsk 2.05  p.m. 

i2ijij\    Kurgan 10.55  p.m.  ; 

2548i  Petropavlovsk ^'^^  ^'^H  Wednesday 

2805     Omsk 4.57  P.M.  J 

Central  Siberian  Section. 

3382!  Krivoshekovo 4.18  p.m.  |  ^j^^j.g^^y 

3390     Ob 4.50  p.m.  } 

3605     Taiga  (for  Tomsk,  82  versts) 1.58  a.m. 


Mariinsk 7.34  a.m. 

3932      \chin?k 2.50  P.M. 

4099     Krasnoyarsk ic  3c  i'.m. 


Friday 


432  () 

4742 

5108 


i).c()  A ,  M.      Saturtlay 

1.38    A.M.   )^ 


N  ijiii   I'clinsk     

Tuliin 8.26  A.M.  i 

Irkutsk 715  -'^-M-      M'onday 


Sunday 


•  To  turn  versts  into  miles,  multiply  by  .66. 


I 


1 1 6 


ALL    llli:    RISSLAS 


The  condensation  of  tins  tabic  is  >\\u\\n  by  the  fact  that  on 
three  clays  only  two  >tations  each,  are  -iven,  and  on  two  day., 
only  one'station.     r>etween  Samara  and  Irkntsk  nnieteen  stations 
are' mentioned  above:    m  realuy  there  are  two  hnndred  and  six. 
Therefore,   stoppa-es  play  a  large   part    m   redncing   the  speed 
average,  and  if  the  rate  of  progress  were  at  all  uniform,  seventeen 
miles  an  hour  would  be  a  very  respectable  hgure.     lUu  for  the 
first  thousand  versts,  as  far  as  Samara,  the  line  is  an  important 
one  in   European   Russia,  and   the   speed   of  the  train  averages 
twenty-two  miles  an  hour.     Then,  when  the  Urals  are  passed, 
a  speed  of  nineteen  miles  is  kept  up  for  a  long  distance  over  the 
straight  stretches  of  the  Siberian  plain.     From  (  )msk  to  Taiga, 
nearly  another  thousand   ver>ts.   it    sinks   to   hfteen   or  sixteen, 
and  after  Taiga  it  drops  to  twelve  miles  an  hour  or  less.     In  fact, 
for  the  last    1,500  miles  of  the  long  journey  there  was  hardly  a 
moment  when  1  would  not  have  backed  myself  to  pass  the  train 
on  a  bicycle  if  there  had  been  a  decent  road  beside  the  track.    And 
the  present  speed  average  will  not  be  greatly  increased  until  the 
whole  line  is  relaid  with  heavier  rails  and  solidly  ballasted. 

But,  though  it  is  possible  to  find  fault  wath  the  speed,  the 
cost  of  the  journey  is  beyond  even  a  miser's  criticism,     d  here  is 
nothing  in  the  world  like  it.     A  few  years  ago,  when  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  people  were  not  making  sutticient  use  of  the 
railways,  the  heroic  decision  was  made  to  put  railway  travelling 
literally   within   the   reach   of  everyone.     The   zone   system   of 
charges  was  adopted,  the  tariff  made  cheaper  the  longer  the  jour- 
ney, and  the  rates  put  at  an  astoundingly  low  figure  for  the  whole 
empire.     Irkutsk,  as  I  have  said,  is  3.371   miles  from  Moscow, 
and  the  journey  thither  occupies  close  upon  nine  days.    1  he  price 
of  a  first-class  ticket  is  sixtv-three  roubles,  and  there  are  supple- 
mentary charges  of  12.60  roubles  for  '^  express  speed,"  7.50  for 
the  sleeping-berth,  and  three  roubles  for  three  changes  of  bed- 
linen  th  ro/^/r.     Total:   86.10  roubles:   £9  2s. :   $44-3«-     And  this 
is  for  a  train  practically  as  luxurious  as  any  in  the  world,  and 


THE    GREAT    SI  BERLIN    RAILWAY 


1 1 


incom|)arabl\-  sui)erior  to  the  ordinary  European  or  American 
train.  The  second-class  fare  for  the  same  journey  is  only  £6, 
ur  less  than  $30,  and  tlie  third-class  passenger,  travelling  by  the 
ordinary  dail}-  train,  and  spending  thirty  hours  more  on  the  way, 
can  actually  travel  these  3.371  miles  for  the  ridiculous  sum  of 
about  £2  14s.,  or,  say,  $13.50.  It  is  otiicially  stated  that  the 
through  ticket  from  Moscow  to  Port  Arthur  or  \dadivostok  will 
cost  115  roubles,  about  £ij,  or  $59,  and  a  ticket  from  London 
or  Paris  to  Shanghai  320  roubles,  about  £33  17s.,  or  Si 65.  The 
enlightenment  which  prescribes  such  fares  should  be  reckoned 
to  the  credit  of  the  Russian  authorities,  when  we  are  noting  down 
things  to  their  debit. 

In  la\ing"  the  Siberian  line  one  irreat  mistake  was  made — • 
f:ir  loo  light  rails  were  ordered.  The  rail-makers  ])oiined  this  out 
when  they  made  their  contracts,  but  an  unwise  economy  pre- 
vailed, with  the  result  that  already  the  trafhc  is  heavier  than  the 
rails  can  carry,  and  minor  accidents  are  consequently  fre([uent. 
The  present  weight  is  a  little  over  sixteen  pounds  to  the  foot,  and, 
as  the  ballast  is  only  earth  or  sand,  and  the  rails  are  merely  spiked 
to  the  sleepers,  after  a  (la\'s  rain  the  trains,  as  somebody  has  re- 
marked, run  off  the  track  like  scphrrels.  This  excuse,  however, 
nuist  be  made  for  the  authorities  :  w  hen  the}-  ])lanned  the  line  they 
had  no  idea  that  traffic  would  develop  as  fast  as  it  has  done.  In 
1900  no  less  than  758,000  tons  of  paying  freight  were  carried,  and 
yet  the  railway  was  wholly  unable  to  move  all  that  was  offered, 
and  I  saw  small  mountains  of  grain  still  awaiting  transportation  as 
late  as  in  November.*     It  is  now  the  intention  to  relav  the  rails 


*  "  The  oross  income  of  the  railway  was  reckoned  in  iqoo  at  24.58  roubles  [/"2  los. 
—  $12.68]  per  i.ooo  car-axle  versts  (in  1899  it  was  28.63  roubles  [^3 — $14.57]),  ^^ 
compared  witli  36.23  roubles  [^3  i6s. — $18.65]  on  all  the  other  government  railway 
lines.  This  low  ^ross  revenue  is  attributed  to  the  <j;reat  ([uantities  of  troops,  j^overn- 
rnent  and  railway  stores  that  the  line  had  to  transport,  at  very  low  rates  as  regards  the 
two  }irst  The  present  j^ross  revenue  of  the  line  is  estimated  at  5,000  roul)les  per 
verst,  (jr  about  £2^0  per  mile." — Mr.  C'onsul-Oeneral  J.  Michell's  Report  for  iqoo. 
Annual  Series.  A'<>.  2yoS,  /'/;v  iS.  The  above  e(]uivalents  within  scjuare  brackets  are 
my  own,  I^ritish  Consuls  not  having  leisure  for  such  calculations.     The  Russian  figures 


1 18 


ALL    THi:    RUSSIAS 


over  the  whole  hue,  and,  as  a  hegiiniing,  the  track  from  Ob  to 
Irkutsk  will  l)e  relaid  as  soon  as  possible,  a  >uni  of  15,000,000 
roubles  ha\  ini;-  been  set  aside  for  this  j)urpose.  The  old  rails  will 
be  used  for  fresh  sidings,  of  which  a  large  number,  and  over  a 
hundred  new  stations,  will  be  constructed.  As  a  further  striking 
example  of  the  extraordinary  development  along  this  new  rail- 
way, 1  may  mention  here  that  last  year  i,075,cx)0  passengers 
were  carried,  as  against  417,000  in  i^i)6.  The  stations  them- 
selves are  admirable.  Except  tlie  (pute  unim])ortant  ones,  where 
no  settlemen.t  yet  exists,  and  the  engine  stoi)s  only  to  take  water, 
they  are  j)rettily  designed,  the  chief  ones  of  brick,  the  rest  of 
wood,  like  Swiss  chalets,  and  they  are  commodiotis  in  size.  In 
no  country  tliat  1  know  can  such  excellent  food  be  had  01  route, 
and  at  every  station  there  is  a  medicine  chest,  and  an  otticial 
corresponding  to  a  dresser  in  one  of  our  hospitals,  called  a  I'cl- 
sclicr,  capable  of  treating  simple  ailments  and  rendering  hrst  aid 
to  the  injured.  For  his  services  and  medicine  no  charge  is  i)er- 
mitted  to  be  made.  My  photograph  on  p.  135  shows  the  water- 
tower  and  storehotise  to  be  seen  at  every  station,  the  latter  being 
banked  up  to  the  roof  with  earth  to  kee])  out  the  cold.  I  low  se- 
vere this  is  mav  be  jtidged  from  the  fact  that  for  a  considerable 
distance-on  the  Central  Siberian  section  the  earth  never  thaws, 
even  in  mid-sununer,  for  more  than  two  or  three  feet  l)elow  the 
^^,j-face — a  condition  which  makes  it  very  difticult  to  hnd  a  solid 
foundation  for  buildings  and  bridge-piles.  The  line  is  watched 
bv  an  army  of  men,  no  fewer  than  4,000,  for  instance,  being  em- 
ployed between  the  I'rals  and  1^)msk.  One  of  these  is  stationed 
in  his  little  wooden  hut  at  every  verst :  he  stands  at  attention,  t1ag 
in  hand,  as  the  train  approaches,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  step  into 
the  middle  of  the  track  as  soon  as  the  train  has  passed,  and  hold 

are  doubtless  accurate,  hut  the  conchuliivi,^  statement  contains  an  extra<.r(hnary  l-hin- 
der.  Five  thousand  roubles  per  verst  ecjuals  about  /707  los.,  not  12'}0,  i>er  mile. 
Inasmuch  as  5.000  roubles  is  roughly  ^sOO,  and  a  vcr^t  is  about  two-thirds  ot  a  mile. 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  think  that  even  a  Koreii^n  Office  proof-reader  mii^ht  have 
detected  so  palpable  an  error. 


THE    GREAT    SIBERLAN    RAILWAY        119 

up  his  staff  as  a  signal  that  all  is  right.  This  figure  may  be  ob- 
served in  my  photographs.  Almost  every  one  of  these  men — 
every  one  in  Central  Siberia — is  an  ex-convict  or  a  dcpovtc;  yet 
although,  as  I  shall  have  occasion  to  point  out  later,  crime  is  rife 
in  Siberia,  and  constitutes  the  chief  drawback  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country,  I  did  not  hear  of  a  single  offence  com- 
mitted by  one  of  these  men. 

Beyond  Irkutsk  the  railway  was  not  yet  open,  but  the  line 
was  in  working  order  and  the  Governor-General,  General  Gore- 
mykin,  was  kind  enough  to  give  me  a  special  train  over  it  to 
Lake  P)aikal,  and  to  place  a  government  steam-launch  at  my 
disposal  on  the  lake.  This  inland  sea  has  an  area  of  over  12,000 
s(juare  miles;  its  water  is  brilliantly  clear,  its  depth  is  enormous 
and  in  many  places  unplumbed,  and  the  solid  mountains  run  sheer 
down  to  its  edges.  The  terminus  is  a  station  called  Baranchiki, 
just  where  the  Angara  empties  itself  into  the  lake,  and  a  long 
wooden  jetty  leads  to  the  slip  where  the  great  ice-breaking,  train- 
carrying  steamer  lies.  The  railway  has  now  been  begun  round 
the  southern  end  of  the  lake,  though  the  cost  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty-five  miles  of  line  through  such  a  country  will  be  very 
great,  but  this  Circum-Baikal  section,  the  Kntgobalkalskaya, 
is  considered  essential  for  heavy  traffic,  to  provide  an  alterna- 
tive route  if  the  steamers  break  down  or  cannot  pass  the  ice, 
and  not  improbably  to  connect  ultimately  with  a  line  direct  to 

Peking. 

The  firm  of  Sir  William  Armstrong,  Whitworth  &  Co. 
has  built  upon  Lake  Baikal  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
steamships  in  the  world,  to  ferry  the  Siberian  trains  across 
the  lake,  and  in  winter  to  break  the  ice  at  the  same  time. 
The  '*  Baikal  "  was  brought  out  in  pieces  from  Newcastle-on- 
Tyne,  and  put  together  by  English  engineers,  who  have  been 
living  in  this  remote  and  lonely  spot  for  over  two  years.  I 
found  three  of  these  hard  at  work,  the  chief,  Mr.  Douie,  and 
his  assistants,  Mr.  Renton  and  Mr.  Handy,  and  spent  some  very 


i 


\ 


I  J 


120 


AIJ.     IHK    RLISSIAS 


interesting  hours  with  them.     They  ought   to  be  well  i)ai(l  for 
the  hue  work  thev  were  doing,  for  a  more  drearx  exile  can  hardly 
be  imagined.    Thev  lived  at  a  little  village  called  I.istveintchnaya, 
a  nest  of  crime  and  robbery,  crowded  during  the  summer  with 
innumerable  caravans  bringing  tea  from  China.     l^Lvery  civilised 
person  carries  a  revolver  there,  and  two  if  he  is  of  a  cautious 
temperament.     Xobody  thinks  of  going  out  after  dark,  and  every 
week  somebody  is  robbed  or  killed.     The  whole  poi)ulation  is  ex- 
convict  or  worse.      The  boss  oi  the  labourer^  on  the  I'aikal  was  in 
Siberia  for  outraging  a  child;    the  man   who  conducted  me  to 
where  Mr.  Douie  and  Mr.  Kenton  were  at  work  was  a  nnu'derer 
from  the  Caucasus;    a  short  time  l)efore  my  visit  another  nuu"- 
derer  employed   on  the  ^hip  had   tried   to  repeat   his  crime,  and 
had  been  consigned  to  chains  again;    the  \  cry  day   1    was  there 
the   |)olice   were  looking   for  a  man   >u])posed  to   have  ol)tained 
work  in  the  yard,  who  wa-  wantrd  for  killing  eight  j^eoplc,  1  was 
told,  at  one  time.      There  arc  a  u-w  Cossack^  at   I  .i-^t vcnitchnava, 
but   thev  are  whollv  incapable.  c\-cn   u"  ihcx'   ha\'f   the  desire,   of 
coping  wall   tlie  tnrbuleni   place.     It   nia\-  be  the  bc-^t   policv  lor 
tile   l\us>]an  <  io\-c!anneiU  ii'u   I"  iiang  a-  murderers,  or  keep  its 
criminals  in  conliiienient .  but  a«  turn  tlieai  Iom^c  m  sueli  places. 
There  can  be  no  excu^^e,  however,   for  il>  failure   to  jiroxide  an 
adeciuate  police  force  to  control  them,  or  for  the  |)reposterous 
tolerance  wiiich  allows  exery  man  of  these  criminals  to  go  aboiu 
armed  to  the  teeth.     A  few  months  before   my  visit   they   held 
up  tlie  mail  cart  from  Lake  Ikiikal  to  Irkutsk,  shot  four  of  its  hve 
guards,  and  stole  its  gold.     Some  day  they  will  hold  up  a  train, 
and  rob  the  passengers.     Then  authority  wnll  doubtless  assert 
itself.     1  do  not  see  anything  to  prevent  such  an  act.     In  a  place 
like  this  the  English  engineers  have  absolutely  nothing   to  do 
or  think  about,  except  their  work,  and  the  long  evenings  of  a 
Siberian  winter,  spent  within  fast-l)arred  doors,  must  be  inexpres- 
sibly dreary. 

The  "  Baikal  "  is  a  magnificent  vessel  of  4,000  tons,  with  twin 


THF.    GRKAT    SIBERIAN    RAILWAY       121 

engines  amidships  of  1,250  horse-power  each,  and  a  similar  en- 
gine forward,  to  drive  the  screw  m  the  bow;  for  the  principle 
of  the  new  tvpe  of  ice-breaker  is  to  draw  out  the  water  from 
under  the  ice  ahead  by  the  suction  of  a  bow-screw,  when  the 
ice  collapses  by  its  own  weight  and  a  passage  is  forced  through 
the  broken  mass  l)y  the  impact  of  the  vessel.  As  will  be  seen 
from  my  illustrations,  the  f^rst  that  have  been  published,  the 
••  Baikal  •■  has  extensive  upper  works,  and  these  contain  luxurious 


The  Sieamshir  '-Baikal"  Steaminir  tliroui;li  the  U'e. 

saloons  and  cabins.  Upon  her  deck  she  carries  three  trains 
-a  passent^er  train  in  the  middle,  and  a  freight  tram  on  each 
side  Her  speed  is  thirteen  knots,  and  on  her  trial  trips  she  has 
shown  herself  capable  of  breaking  through  solid  ice  thirty-eight 
inches  thick,  with  five  inches  of  hard  snow  on  the  top— such  snow 
is  much  more  difficult  to  pierce  than  ice-and  has  forced  her 
way  through  two  thicknesses  of  ice  frozen  together,  aggregat- 
ing from  fiftv-six  to  sixty-five  inches.  In  summer  her  bow  pro- 
peller should  be  removed,  and  large  propellers  substituted  for  her 


v<^ 


s 


\ 


I 


!  I 


.1 
\ 


II 

11 

ii 

t 

i 


no 


ALL     IHL    RUSSIAS 


interesting  hours  with  them.     They  ought   to  1)e  wcH  paid  for 
the  tine  work  thc>  were  douig,  for  a  more  (h'eary  exile  can  hardly 
be  imagined.    Thex'  lived  at  a  little  village  called  Listxcnhchnaya. 
a  nest  of  crime  and  rol)l)ery,  crowded  during  the  sunnner  with 
innumerable  caravans  bringing  tea  from  China,     livery  civilised 
person  carries  a  revolver  there,  and  two  if  he  is  of  a  cautious 
temperament.     Nobody  thinks  of  going  out  after  dark,  and  every 
week  somebody  is  rol)l)ed  or  killed.     l"he  whole  poi)ulation  is  ex- 
con\ict  or  worse,      ddie  l)o>^  of  the  lal)ourer>  on  the  I'aikal  \\a^  in 
Siberia  for  outraging  a  child;    the   man   who  conducted  me   to 
where  Mr.  Douie  and  Mr.  Kenton  were  at  work  was  a  murderer 
from  the  I'aucasus;    a  short   time  before  in>-  visit  another  mur- 
derer emploved   on  the  >hip  had   tried   to  repeat   his   crime,   and 
had  been  consigned  to  chains  again;    the  \ery  da\-    1    was  there 
the   police  were  looking   for  a  man   >upposcd   to   have  obtained 
work  m  the  \ard,  wiio  \\a:-  wanted  for  killing  eiglu  ])e(iple,  I  was 
told,  at  one  time.     There  are  a  !e\v  Cossack<  at  1  .i-t  venitchiiava. 
but   the\-  are   wlioliy   incapable,   even   if   liiex    have    the   de<ire.    >>{ 
coping  wuh   the  inrbuieni   place.      It    max-   be  llie  best    pulley  ba- 
ilie  l\u-Han  (  io\'ernnieni  n<  a  to  liang  its  murderers,  ^t  keep  its 
crniinialN  m  enntniemeiil,  Lail  lo  turn  liieni  loose  in  ^ncll  places. 
There  can  ])e  no  exim^e.  however,  for  its  failure  to  ])rovide   an 
adecpiate   |)oliee  force  to  control   ihem,  i.r  lor  the   p.rep<  »-terous 
tolerance  winch  allows  everx   man.  of  ilie.se  cnininaL^  to  go  abora 
armed  to  the   teeth.      A   tew  month-  before   my   visit    tliey  held 
np  the  mail  cart  from  Lake  I'.aikal  to  Irkut.-k,  dmi  four  of  its  five 
"uanL    and  stole  its  gold.     Some  dav  they  will  hold  up  a  train, 
and   rob   the  passengers.       Ihcn   antliority   will   donhtless  assert 
itself.     I  do  not  see  anythint;  to  |)revent  sncli  an  act.     In  a  place 
like  this  the  English  engineers  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
or  think  about,  e.xcept  their  work,  and  the  long  evenings  of  a 
Siberian  winter,  spent  within  fast-barred  doors,  must  be  inexpres- 
sibly dreary. 

The  "  Baikal  "  is  a  magnificent  vessel  of  4.000  tons,  with  twin 


THK    GRKAT    SIBP.RIAN    RAILWAY 


121 


engines  amidships  of  i,_'50  horse-power  each,  and  a  similar  en- 
gine forward,  lo  drive  the  screw  in  the  bow,  for  the  principle 
of  the  new  txpe  of  ice-breaker  is  to  draw  out  the  water  from 
under  the  ice  ahead  by  the  suction  of  a  bow-screw,  when  the 
ice  collaiises  by  its  own  weight  and  a  passage  is  forced  through 
the  broken  mass  l)y  the  impact  of  the  vessel.  As  will  be  seen 
from  mv  illustrations,  the  first  that  have  been  published,  the 
•■  P.aikal'-  has  extensive  upper  works,  and  these  contain  luxurious 


The  Si.Mmship  -Baikar'  Sieamini;  through  tlie  Ice. 


saloons  and  cabins.  Upon  her  deck  sl,e  carries  three  trains 
_a  passenger  train  in  the  mid.Ue.  and  a  freight  tram  on  each 
side  Iler'^peed  is  thirteen  knots,  and  on  her  trial  trips  she  has 
shown  herself  capable  of  breaking  through  solid  ice  thirty-e.ght 
inches  thick,  with  tive  inches  of  hard  snow  on  the  top-such  snow 
is  much  more  (Ufficult  to  pierce  than  ice-and  has  forced  her 
way  through  two  thicknesses  of  ice  frozen  together,  aggregat- 
ing from  fiftv-six  to  sixty-f^ve  inches.  In  summer  her  bow  pro- 
peller should  be  removed,  and  large  propellers  substituted  tor  her 


it 


122 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


smaller  winter  ones;  but  so  far  the  railway  authorities  have  taken 
no  steps  to  build  a  dock  upon  the  lake,  without  w^hich  neither 
of  these  important  cliani^es  can  be  effected,  nor  the  steamer 
herself  repaired  if  any  mishap  should  damai;e  her  hull.  Lake 
Baikal  is  frozen  from  the  middle  of  December  to  the  end  of  April, 
and  there  is  also  talk  of  laying  a  railway  across  upon  the  ice,  as 
is  done  each  year  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Kronstadt ;  but  proba- 
bly all  depends  upon  the  success  of  the  ice-l)reaking  steamer. 

If  this  accomplishes 
its  purpose  another 
simiku"  vessel  will  be 
built,  for  obviously 
the  entire  trans-con- 
tinental s  e  r  \'  i  c  e 
would  otherwise  be 
staked  upon  one  ship 
never  getting  out  of 
order  the  whole  sea- 
son. The  "  Yermak," 
ho  we  \'  c  1"-^ t  h  c  ice- 
breaker also  built  by 
Sir  William  Arm- 
strong, \V  li  i  t  wort  h 
cK:  Co.  for  service  in 
the  Baltic — has  been 
sucli  a  splendid  suc- 
cess, forcing  her  way  through  mixed  ice  twenty-live  feet 
thick,  that  there  is  every  reason  to  presume  tlie  "Baikal" 
will  do  her  work  equally  well. 

Upon  the  opposite  side  of  Lake  Baikal  the  starting  station 
is  Alisovaya,  thirty-nine  miles  from  Ikaranchiki,  and  there  the 
railway  enters  upon  a  great  plateau  and  reaches  its  highest  point 
in  the  Yablonoi  Mountains  at  3,412  feet.  This  has  been  the 
most  trying  section  of  the  line  to  build,  and  the  last  rail  was 


[^>w  <.J  Uie  "  li;ukar'  Bre.ikinir  the  Ico. 


THK    GREAT    SIBERL'\N    RAILWAY       123 

laid  only  on  December  28,  1899.     As  originally  announced,  the 
intention  was  to  continue  the  railway  right  through  to  Khabar- 
ofsk,  whence  trains  have  l)een  running  for  some  time  to  Madivos- 
tok.      But  there  is  good  reason  to  think  that  the  Russian  (iov- 
ernment  never  really  expected  to  have  to  do  this,  and  was  well 
aware  that  before  the  rest  of  the  line  could  be  finished  an  arrange- 
ment with  China  would  permit  her  to  carry  the  railway  through 
Manchuria,  thus  not  only  giving  her  virtual  control  of  this  most 
valuable  province  but  also  greatly  shortening  the  entire  length. 
The  route  will  therefore,  now  be  from  Misovaya  to  Stretensk, 
605  miles;   by  steamer,  larger  or  smaller  according  as  the  water 
is  higher  or  lower,  down  the  Shilka  and  Amur  rivers,  i,4-'8  miles, 
to  Khabarofsk;    and  thence  to  Yladivostok,  252  miles.     Total 
distance  from  Moscow  by  this  route,  4,307  miles  by  railway,  and 
1,467  miles  by  steamer. 

The  Boxer  rising  has  so  disorganised  and  delayed  everything 
connected   with   the   TransT3aikal   section   of  the   line   that    no 
through  times  can  be  accurately  given.     But  previous  to  these 
disturl)ances  it  was  officially  stated  that  in  summer  the  journey 
from  Moscow  to  \^la(livostok  would,  until  the  completion  of  tlie 
Manchurian  lines,  occupy  about  twenty  days.     Just  before  the 
Chme^e  coinnicnced  lio^tiluies  a  friend  in  mine  made  the  coni- 
[)lete  journey  as  quickly  as  possible— the  railway  not  being  yel 
organised  for  through  traffic.     With  much  courteous  help  from 
the  authorities,  and  doing  one  long  stretch  in  Eastern  Sil>ena  m 
a  horse-box,  his  itinerary  was  as  follows: 

Vladivostok May  ^7.  18 

Khabarofsk ^^^y  19.20 

Blagovyeshchensk ^^ay  27-29 

Pokovkhra • 1^"^  4-6 

Stretensk June  9-1 1 

Baikal June  15 

Irkutsk June  16 

Moscow (late)  June  23 


I    ii 


.^1     ^ 


l^ 


124 


ALL     rm:    RLSSLAS 


That  is,  the  journey  took  thirty-eii;lit  days.  lUu  it  will  he  noticed 
that  no  fewer  than  twenty  (la\s  were  spent  on  the  Amur  and 
Shilka  rivers,  tliis  dreary  delay  l)enii;  due  to  the  tact  that  shallow 
water  reduced  the  rate  of  si)eed  at  times  to  next  to  notliini;",  and 
at  other  times  stopj)ed  the  steamer  alto<^a'ther.  This  was  excep- 
tional, e\en  at  this  time  of  >ear,  and  allowing;-  for  the  fact  that 
the  journey  was  against  the  current.  Moreover,  as  1  have  ex- 
plained ahove,  this  river  journey  is  only  a  temporary  expedient, 
to  connect  the  two  ends  of  the  railway  while  the  Manchurian 
railway  is  under  constructic^n,  and  it  will  he  ohserved  that  the 
journey  from  Irkutsk  to  Moscow  has  heen  consideral)ly  shortened 
e\"en  since   1   made  it  a  few  months  ])re\iousl}'.''' 

The  ultimate  route  will  he  from  Misovaya,  on  Lake  luiikal, 
to  Khaidalovo,  a  sliort  distance  on  this  side  of  Stretensk,  thence 

*  The  line  tnun  Khaidalova  to  the  ( 'hinc^e  huntiei.  vonnectiii^  the  Siberian  Kail- 
wav  with  the  Manchuria!i  Kailway,  lias  been  opeiu-il  tur  na!tic.  Mi  iic(  i\  rr.  since  lh;s 
chapter  was  written,  the  hist  rail  ot  the  Northeiii  Manchurian  section  was  laid  on  No- 
vember 3,  iqoi,  coni[)letin^  the  all  rail  connection  between  Mo-c^w  and  the  har  I'.ast 
ern  termini,  and  by  eliminating  the  ri\er  journey  between  Stretensk  and  Khabarofsk 
greatly  shortening  the  through  j(jurney,  in  which  there  will  now  be  on!_\-  one  change  of 
cars  (at  Lake  liaikal)  !)etween  Moscow  and  I'ort  Arthur  (to  which  the  branch  from 
Ivharbin  is  already  oj)en)  or  Vladivostok,  d'his  event  has  been  annoiniced  by  M.  de 
Witte  in  the  tollowing  address  t*;  the  'i'sar  ; 

"  (  )n  May  K),  iS()I,  vour  Majestv,  at  Vladivostok,  turned  with  your  own  hand  the 
first  sod  of  the  (ireat  Siberian  Kailway.  To-day,  on  the  anniversary  ot  your  accession 
to  the  throne,  the  l^ast  Asiatic  Railway  line  is  completed.  I  venture  to  express  to 
your  Majesty  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  my  loyal  congratulaiiou  on  this  historic 
event.  With  the  laying  of  the  rails  for  a  distance  of  2,400  versts.  trom  the  Transbaikal 
territory  to  \dadivostok  and  Port  Arthur,  our  enterprise  in  Manchuria  i-  practically, 
though  not  entirely,  concluded.  Xotwdthstanding  exceptionally  ditficult  conditions 
and  the  destruction  of  a  large  portion  of  the  line  last  year,  temporary  trahic  can,  from 
to-day,  be  carried  on  along  the  wdiole  sv^tem.  1  hope  that  within  two  years  hence  all 
the  remaining  work  to  be  done  will  be  completed  and  that  the  railway  will  be  opened 
for  {permanent  regular  trafhc." 

The  Tsar  replied  as  follows  : 

"  I  thank  vou  sincerelv  for  vour  jovful  communication.  I  congratulate  you  on  the 
completion  within  so  short  a  time  and  amid  incredii)le  ditficulties  of  one  ot  the  greatest 
railway  undertakings  of  the  world." 

I  may  add  that  M.  Lessar,  the  new  Russian  Minister  to  (diina.  performed  the 
through  journey  in  twentv  davs,  but  for  political  reasons  every  elTc^rt  was  made  to 
convey  him  to  liis  jxist  as  (piicklv  as  pos-ible. 


THE    GREAT    SIBERIAN    RAILWAY 


I  2 


across  Manchuria  to  Xikholsk,  sixty  miles  above  Madivostok, 
with  a  branch  line  from  Kharbhi,  the  centre  of  Manchuria,  to 
Mnk.lcn.  wlicnce  three  other  branches  lead  respectively  to 
Niucbwans.  I'oi't  .\rthur.  and  Peking.  The  last  of  these  is 
nominallv  built  by  the  Russo-Chinese  Banking  Company.  l)ut 
this  is  a  mere  form  of  words— the  whole  line  is  as  Russian 
its  AIoscow.  The  Manchurian  raihvay  will  be  950  miles  long, 
*an(i  the  southern  branch  646  miles,  and  when  all  this  is  com- 
pleted the  total  length  of  the  (ireat  Siberian  Railway  will  be 

5,486  miles. 

The  following  will  then  be  the  shortest  route  between  the 
United  States  and  the  Far  East  via  Siberia:  New  York,  Havre, 
Paris  (London  passengers  will  go  via  Dover  and  Ustend  to 
Cologne).  Cologne,  Berlin.  Alexandrovo,  Warsaw,  Moscow,  Tula, 
Samara.  Chelyabinsk,  Irkutsk,  Stretensk,  Mukden.  Port  Arthur, 
and  the  total  length  of  this  journey  (excluding  the  Atlantic) 
about  7,300  miles,  of  which  297  miles  will  be  in  France.  99  miles 
in  Belgium.  660  miles  in  Germany,  2,310  miles  in  European  Rus- 
sia, and  about  4,000  in  Asiatic  Russia.     These  are  the  official 

figures. 

One  other  possibility  must  be  mentioned— it  is  always  un- 
safe to  sav  that  any  Russian  plan  is  final— namely,  that  the  whole 
direction  of  the  Trans-Baikalian  line  will  once  more  be  altered, 
as  I  have  suggested  above,  and  that  a  line  will  be  run  due  south- 
east from  Irkutsk  to  Peking  along  the  old  caravan  road  through 
Kiakhta,  and  across  the  desert. 

This  would  again  enormously  shorten  the  through  journey; 
there  are  no  insuperable  physical  difficulties:  if  China  is  coerced 
into  consenting  while  England  still  has  her  hands  full  in  South 
Africa,  and  Japan  remains  passive,  there  will  be  no  political  ob- 
stacle; and  the  political  and  strategical  results  will  be  infinitely 
more  important  than  the  commercial  ones,  for  it  will  give  Russia 
definitive  control  over  the  whole  of  Northern  China.  But  this, 
unless  a  wiser  diplomacy  arises  meanwhile,  might  mean  war  with 


* 


->^-^r-'i- 


124 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^lS 


That  is,  the  journey  took  thirty-eii^ht  clays.  lUil  it  will  1)e  noticed 
that  no  fewer  than  twenty  days  were  spent  on  the  Amur  and 
Shilka  rivers,  this  dreary  delay  hein^;-  due  to  the  fact  that  shallow- 
water  reduced  the  rate  of  s])eed  at  times  to  next  to  nothing-,  and 
at  other  times  stopped  the  steaiuer  altogether.  This  was  excep- 
tional, even  at  this  time  of  year,  and  allowing-  for  the  fact  thai 
the  journey  was  ag;ainst  the  current.  Moreover,  as  1  have  ex- 
plained ahove,  this  river  journey  is  only  a  tem|)orary  expedient, 
to  connect  the  two  ends  of  the  railway  while  the  Manchurian 
railway  is  under  construction,  and  it  will  be  observed  that  the 
journey  from  Irkutsk  to  ^loscow  has  been  considerably  shortened 
even  since  i  made  it  a  few  months  prexiouslw''' 

The  ultimate  route  will  be  from  Misovaya,  on  Lake  1  Baikal, 
to  Khaidalovo,  a  short  distance  on  this  side  of  Stretensk,  thence 

*  The  line  Irom  Khaidalova  to  the  ('hiiu-^e  hontier,  connecting  the  Si'herian  Rail- 
way willi  the  Manchurian  Railway,  has  been  ojjcned  h>r  ttattic.  Moreover,  since  this 
chapter  was  written,  the  last  rail  of  the  Northern  Manchurian  section  w;is  laid  on  No- 
vember 3,  IQOI,  coin{)leting  the  all-iail  connection  between  Moscow  and  the  l"ar  luist- 
ern  termini,  and  Ijy  eliminating  the  river  journey  between  Stretensk  and  l\hal)ar()fsk 
greatly  shortening  the  through  journey,  in  which  there  will  now  be  (»nly  one  change  ot 
cars  (at  Lake  Ikiikal)  between  Moscow  and  I'ort  Arthur  (to  which  the  branch  from 
Kharbin  i>>  already  open)  or  \dadivostok.  This  event  has  been  announced  by  M.  de 
Witte  in  the  followinij  address  to  the  Tsar  ; 

"  (  )n  May  iq,  1891,  vour  Majestv,  at  \'ladivostok,  turned  with  your  own  hand  the 
first  sod  ot  the  (ireat  Siberian  Railway.  To-day,  on  the  anniversary  ot  your  accession 
to  the  throne,  the  I'.ast  Asiatic  Railway  line  is  cotnpleted.  I  venture  to  exjire^s  to 
vour  Majesty  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  my  loyal  congratulation  on  thi>  historic 
event.  With  the  laying  of  the  rails  for  a  distance  of  2,400  ver'-ts.  trom  the  Transbaikal 
territory  to  \dadivostok  and  Port  Arthur,  our  enterjjri^e  in  Manchuria  is  practically. 
though  not  entirely,  concluded.  Notwithstanding  exceptionally  <litficult  conditions 
and  the  destruction  of  a  large  {portion  of  the  line  last  year,  temporary  trallic  can.  from 
to-day,  be  carried  on  along  the  whole  system.  1  hope  that  within  two  years  hence  all 
the  remaining  work  to  be  done  will  be  completed  and  that  the  railway  will  l)e  o])ened 
for  permanent  regular  trathc." 

The  Tsar  re])lied  as  follows  : 

"  I  thank  you  sincerely  for  your  joyful  communication.  I  congratulate  you  on  the 
completion  within  so  short  a  time  and  amid  incredible  ditticuhies  of  one  ot  the  greatest 
railway  undertakings  of  the  world." 

I  may  add  that  M.  Lessar,  the  new  Russian  Minister  to  China,  i)erf(.'rmed  the 
through  journey  in  twenty  days.  l)ut  for  jiolitical  reasons  every  efTort  was  made  to 
convey  him  to  his  post  as  (juicklv  as  possible. 


THE    GREAT    SIBERL^N    RAILWAY       125 

acru.s  Manchuria  to  Xikholsk,  sixty  miles  above  Vladivostok, 
with  a  branch  line  from  Ivharbin,  the  centre  of  Manchuria,  to 
Mukden,  whence  three  other  branches  lead  respectively  to 
Ni'uchwan-.  Port  .\rthur.  and  Peking.  The  last  of  these  is 
nominallv  built  by  the  Russo-Chinese  Banking  Company,  Init 
this  is  a'  mere  form  of  words— the  whole  line  is  as  Russian 
as  Moscow.  The  .Manchurian  railway  will  be  950  miles  long, 
and  the  southern  branch  646  miles,  and  when  all  this  is  com- 
lileted  the  total  length  of  the  (Ireat  Siberian  Railway  will  be 

5,486  miles. 

The  following  will  then  be  the  shortest  route  between  the 
United  States  and  the  Far  East  via  Siberia:  New  York,  Havre, 
Paris  (London  passengers  will  go  via  Dover  and  Ostend  to 
Cologne),  Cologne,  Berlin,  Alexandrovo,  Warsaw,  Moscow,  Tula, 
Samara,  Chelvabinsk,  Irkutsk,  Stretensk,  Mukden,  Port  Arthur, 
and  the  total  length  of  this  journey  (excluding  the  Atlantic) 
about  7,300  miles,  of  which  297  miles  will  be  in  France,  99  miles 
in  Belgium,  660  miles  in  Germany,  2,310  miles  in  European  Rus- 
sia, and  about  4.000  in  Asiatic  Russia.     These  are  the  official 

figures. 

One  other  possibility  must  be  mentioned— it  is  always  un- 
safe to  sav  that  any  Russian  plan  is  f^nal— namely,  that  the  whole 
direction  of  the  Trans-Baikalian  line  will  once  more  be  altered, 
as  I  have  suggested  above,  and  that  a  line  will  be  run  due  south- 
east from  Irkutsk  to  Peking  along  the  old  caravan  road  through 
Kiakhta,  and  across  the  desert. 

This  would  again  enormously  shorten  the  through  journey; 
there  are  no  insuperable  physical  difficulties;  if  China  is  coerced 
into  consenting  while  England  still  has  her  hands  full  in  South 
Africa,  and  Japan  remains  passive,  there  will  be  no  political  ob- 
stacle; and  the  political  and  strategical  results  will  be  inhnitely 
more  important  than  the  commercial  ones,  for  it  will  give  Russia 
definitive  control  over  the  whole  of  Northern  China.  But  this, 
unless  a  wiser  diplomacy  arises  meanwhile,  might  mean  war  with 


S 


126 


ALL     IHK    RLSSL-\S 


England  and  Japan,  sooner  or  later,  whether  America  strikes  a 
blow  for  her  trade  or  not. 

Finally,  the  Siberian  Railway  is  officially  estimated  to  cost, 
when  completed,  780,000,000  roubles  (£82,500,000:) — $401,362,- 
000),  of  which  500,000,000  roubles  (£53,000,000 — $257,283,000), 
were  spent  by  the  end  of  1899,  and  i30,ooo,ocx)  roubles  (£13,745,- 
000 — $66,893,000)  were  allocated  to  the  work  of  19CX).  From 
what  I  saw,  1  concluded  that  the  official  estimate  will  be  largely 
exceeded.  Before  this  gigantic  enterprise  is  finished  it  is  not 
likely  to  cost  much  less  than  £100.000.000  ($500,000,000). 

Since  the  Great  Wall  of  China  the  world  has  seen  no  one 
material  undertaking  of  ecjual  magnitude.  That  Russia,  single- 
handed,  should  have  conceived  it  and  carried  it  out,  makes  imag- 
ination falter  before  her  future  influence  upon  the  course  of  events. 
Its  strategical  results  are  already  easy  to  foresee.  It  will  con- 
solidate Russian  influence  in  the  Far  East  in  a  manner  yet  un- 
dreamed of.  But  this  will  be  by  slow  steps.  The  expectation 
that  the  line  would  serve  at  a  moment  of  danger,  or  in  ])ursuit  of  a 
suddenly  executed  coup,  to  throw  masses  of  soldiers  from  Europe 
into  Chuia,  is  yet  far  from  realisation.  The  line  and  its  organisa- 
tion would  break  down  utterly  under  such  pressure.  But  bit  by 
bit  it  will  grow  in  capacity,  and  the  l^owers  which  have  enormous 
interests  at  stake  in  the  Far  East,  if  they  continue  to  sleep  as 
England  has  done  of  late,  will  wake  to  fmd  a  new,  solid,  impene- 
trable, self-sufficing  Russia  dominating  China  as  slie  has  dom- 
inated, sooner  or  later,  every  other  Oriental  land  against  whose 
frontier  she  has  laid  her  own. 


ii 


CHAPTER   VlII 

SIBERIA    FROM    THE    TRAIN 

TO  Siberia!     The  mere  name  still  causes  a  shudder.     An 
ice-bound  land,   inconceivably   remote,   a   few  miserable, 
lonelv  towns,  the  endless  tramp  of  the  chain-gang,  the  horrors 
of  the  prison  and  the  mine,  the  bark  of  the  wolf-pack  in  the  forest, 
banishment,  despair— that  is  Siberia  as  most  people  have  been 
taught— often  maliciously— to  imagine  it.     A  land  where  spring 
blazes  with  flowers  as  nowhere  else,  thousands  of  square  miles  of 
golden  grain,  an  unimaginable  wealth  of  minerals,  forests  beyond 
computation,  a  net-work  of  great  waterways  without  parallel, 
all  to  be  seen  from  a  drawing-room  on  wheels,  with  servants  and 
tea  and  cigarettes  ever  at  your  elbow  and  an  official  invitation 
to  complain  if  the  temperature  rises  or  falls  more  than  a  few 
.legrees— that  is  a  much  truer  picture.     Between  the  rose-colour 
and  the  horror  there  is  a  mid-stratum  of  plain  fact  of  much  interest 
and  importance  to  the  world,  and  I  will  try  to  describe  a  journey 
through  Sil)eria  as  it  actually  is. 

1  left  the  train  blazing  out  of  Moscow  station,  amid  cheers 
and  tears.  Everyone  is  tired  with  leave-taking,  and  most  pas- 
sengers are  facing  a  long  absence  from  home.  So,  in  response 
to  an  early  summons,  a  big  Tatar,  in  blue  linen  blouse,  with  a 
twisted  scar  upon  his  forehead  which  suggests  contact  with  some 
fierce  crooked  Eastern  blade,  comes  in  and  makes  up  the  broad 
bed  in  a  manner  very  neat  and  prompt:  the  book  of  statistics 
of  Russian  commercial  activities  slips  from  the  foreign  traveller's 
hand,  a  last  effort  disconnects  the  electric  lamp  and  pulls  the 
blue  silk  curtains  over  the  twin  roof-lamps,  and  so,  wrapped  m 

127 


I. 


128 


AlA.     \\ n:    RISSIAS 


a  cloiuly  maze  of  anticipations  and  rocked  suftly  by  the  nuirniur 
of  the  wheels  of  the  Siberian  b:xi)ress,  he  tails  on  sleej). 

Mornini^  shows  a  connlry  mostly  llat  as  a  billiard-table, 
patched  with  helds  of  corn-stnbble,  with  >tretches  of  emerald-col- 
oured winter  rve  and  intervals  of  birch  forest,  scattered  o\er  with 
o-rav-roofed  villaues — little,  tlat,  sheddike  honse>  all  huddled  to- 
o-ether  and  remindiuij-  one  of  the  kind  of  i^ray  scab  that  clusters 
and  spreads  on  the  l)ack  of  a  diseased  leaf.  There  is  nothing-  of 
the  industry  and  economv  of  French  cultivation,  nor  of  the  rich 


The  List  Station  in  Euritpe. 

farmyards  and  sleek  herds  of  kaii^land.  but  the  soil  is  tilled  every- 
where, and  the  harvest  is  oaihered  and  sold,  haiormous  stacks  of 
straw  testify  to  the  al)un(lant  harvest  of  tliis  season.  .\11  the 
houses  are  of  wood,  "ray  with  ai^e.  often  dilapidate<l,  the  wide 
roads  stra^-o-le  throuuh  them,  mere  nnid-tracks  in  rainy  weather. 
and  there  is  almost  always  a  white  church  with  a  <,n-een  roof.  T.ut 
never  a  superior  house,  never  the  residence  of  some  one  well- 
to-do.  These  yillages  have  no  scjuire  and  no  Lady  P.ountiful. 
Without  exception  they  exhibit  one  dull  level  of  poverty,  one 


SlBl^RIA    FROM    THK    l^RAIX 


I  29 


unbroken  record  of  toil  which  just  keeps  a  roof  and  a  fire  and 
finds  a  meagre  sustenance.  The  price  of  wheat  is  very  low,  for 
want  of  transport,  and  the  middle-man — a  Russian,  not  a  Jew — 
]xickets  most  of  the  profits.  As  we  i^et  farther  east  we  pass 
more  prosperous  colonies  of  Bashkirs,  one  of  the  many  strange 
natixe  races  scattered  over  Eastern  Russia.  Here  is  agriculture 
in  its  most  primitive  aspect.  Flalf  a  dozen  shaggy  little  horses, 
tied  head  and  tail,  trot  briskly  in  a  circle,  knee-deep  in  wheat, 
and  in  the  middle  stands  the  peasant  with  a  wdiip,  urging  them 


"*%•«§; 


1 
'-^i^ 


The  Boundary  Between  Europe  and  Asia. 

on  like  the  ring-master  in  a  circus.  There  is  no  need  to  muzzle 
the  beast  that  treadeth  out  the  corn;  he  is  kept  moving  so  fast 
that  he  never  has  a  chance  to  low^er  his  head.  Near  by  is  a  similar 
ring,  where  a  man  is  winnowing  by  the  simple  method  of  tossing 
great  shovelfuls  of  the  grain  into  the  air,  and  the  chaff  sails  away 
in  clouds.  Much  of  this  grain  goes  to  the  windmills  which  cluster 
round  the  little  towns.  One  of  these,  Morchansk,  has  hundreds 
within  the  space  of  a  few  acres,  all  turning  busily  in  the  light 
wind.    The  peasants  hereabouts  have  a  curious  superstition  which 


IjO 


ALL    THE    RLSSLIS 


prevents  them  from  selling  their  wheat  except  as  tlonr.  They 
believe  that  if  they  sell  the  grain  they  lose  the  vitality  of  the 
seed  for  their  next  sowing.  Superstition,  indeed,  is  encountered 
in  Russia  at  every  step.  In  this  very  town  of  Morchansk,  for 
instance,  only  a  few  years  ago,  a  wealthy  merchant  was  found 
to  have  a  secret  iron-barred  cellar  deep  under  his  house,  where 
the  shocking  mutilations  of  the  Slcopisi  sect,  of  which  I  spoke 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  were  perpetrated.  They  were  all  sent  to 
Siberia,  where  they  are  very  likely  making  new  converts. 

We  are  making  nearly  thirty  miles  an  hour,  express  speed 
in  Russia,  for  the  line  here  is  well  laid  and  well  ballasted.     We 
are  still  in  Europe  and  on  a  main  line.     At  the  tail  of  the  train, 
common  to  both  first  and  second-class  passengers,  is  an  observa- 
tion car  with  four  arm-chairs  and  a  few  folding  stools  in  it,  where, 
while  the  day  passes  and  we  hnd  ourselves  more  and  more  fas- 
cinated as  the  landscape  eliminates  useless  details  from  itself  and 
settles  down  to  a  few  very  elementary  and  persistent  traits,  we 
spend  much  time.     The  vast  agricultural  plain  is  at  last  broken 
by  the  expanse  of  the  Volga,  a  mile  wide  at  low  water  and  four 
miles  when  the  river  is  in  flood,  which  we  cross  at   Batraki  by 
the  magnificent  Alexandrofski  Bridge,  with  its  thirteen  enormous 
spans.     It  is  close  upon  a  mile  long,  but  even  with  this  length 
the  river  has  to  be  squeezed  together  by  a  three-mile  dam  before 
it  can  be  crossed.     Then  the  town  of  Samara,  the  junction  of  the 
great  railwav  and  the  great  river,  then  over  another  bridge  across 
the  Ufa  River,  and  the  climb  over  the  Ural  Mountanis  begins. 

Russian>  had  raved  m  u^  about  tlu-c  mountain^,  but  the 
truth  is  that  Russians  are  not  good  judge.;  <'f  mountams— as  in- 
deed, how  should  thev  be,  when  in  the  whole  of  European  Ru- 
sia  tliere  is  no  land  as  high  as  the  Washington  Monument.^ 
Those  in  whom  the  Urals  excite  immoderate  enthusiasm  can 
never  have  seen  the  Tvrol  and  do  not  know  the  (irampians.  Let 
it  be  said  at  once  that  the  Ural-  cannot  hold  a  inuc-knoi  to  either. 
Where  the  firs  clothe  them  closely,  the  hills  seem  to  be  wear- 


SIBERLA    EROM    THE    TRAIN 


131 


ing  a  mantle  of  rough  green  frieze,  but  presently  larches,  yellow- 
ing fast  in  this  perfect  October  weather,  burn  like  flambeaux 
among  the  green,  and  beside  the  shallow-  river,  wimpling  over 
its  stony  bed,  and  through  the  fords  of  stepping-stones  built 
curiously  in  a  fork  shape,  the  purple  thicket  of  bare  alder-twigs 


The  Town  of  Zlataoust  from  t!ie  Railway. 

makes  planes  of  soft,  qniet  colour,  ^'our  fir  or  pine  fJi  duissc  is 
an  inartistic  tree;  the  repetition  of  his  even  points  becomes  tire- 
some, and  he  gives  the  outline  of  the  mountains  a  line  regular 
as  the  teeth  of  a  comb,  which  should  be  the  despair  of  the  painter. 
Therefore  painters  wisely  let  these  fir  countries  alone. 

In  a  few  places,  at  the  water-parting,  which  occurs  near  the 
town  of  Zlataoust,  the  pine  gives  way  and  the  gray  stone  triumphs 


( 


132 


AI.l.     IHl.    Rl  SSIAS 


where  a  few  points,  the  highest  c.f  any  in  ihi>  southern  end  of  the 
ciuun,  r>se  hare  against  th.e  sky.    A  Utile  ,.t,r  anion-  the  engnieers, 
who  cotn-teouslv  de.u'e  that    I   shall  l..>e  nollnn-,  causes  n.e  to 
o-lue  nivsell  to  the  win.K.w  and  stare  into  the  (ore>t  n.  my  de- 
Tire  not' to  nii>s  the  frontier-post,  the  actual  detVnite  spot,  hcyond 
the  station  of  Urjunika,  where  luirope  ends  and  Asia  l.e-ins.  the 
i.nlv  place,  except  one  other  in  tliese  same  numntains  and  one 
in  the  Caucasus,  where  Europe  and  .\sia  are  joined  l.y  railway. 
It  has  been  marked,  as  we  presently  see.  by  a  little  uninspired 
monument,  some  ten  feet  !ii,s;h,  in  yellnw  freesmne.     It  i-  a  snnple 
base  with  a  stone-l)uili.  pointed  coUinin  on  the  top— the  sort  of 
thin-  vou  mav  liiid  behind  some  trees  in  the  park  of  a  noble- 
man? raised  to'mark  the  re>tin,L;-place  of  his  favourite  f..x-terrier. 
I  do  not  detect  any  inscription  upon  its  front,  as  the  train  passes 
at  such  a  speed  that  to  photograph  it  1  have  to  set  my  shutter 
at  the  hundredth  part  of  a  second,  with  the  re>ult  you  see.     Indif- 
ferent, the  passengers  barely  interrupt  their  endless  tea  and  talk 
and  cigarettes,  but  we  are  silent,  thoughtful,  opp'-^--^''''  frangbt 
with    "igue  realisatinn^  ,.1   the  Mgnilicance  -t  ihi^  bit   of  earth; 
i.llv  we 'compose,  with  lVel.ng>  that  sh.nild  thnll  a   Ku>Man.  but 
are.  ^ave  for  our  .en^c  nl  the  ^cntunent,  alien  to  us  the  legend 
thai   mi-bt   l.e  cut  up..n  tin.  tatctul  pillar.      Uu-Ma,  wli..  ba^  not 
lo.,ked  back,  here  l.rM   pushed  her  pK.n.Lib  beyond  the  la^t    lunit 
,„■   bain.pe.      Merc  she  i^.rde.l   lier>elt   tnr  that   b.ng  an<l   bl-.odv 
march  across  the  .X^an  plain;  what  ;i  journcv.  bow  long  ^incc  be- 
-un.  h..w  >trenuouslv  pur-iicd.  how  rich  in  human  incident,  lunv 
bitter  with  human  ..ulTeriug!     Here  pa»cd  her  tram-  ni  cb;nned 
^-oin-icts— convicts  whose  te.ar<  made   I'.urope  weep;    here,  even 
here,  dehled  the  long  line  of  exiles,  reft  from  their  homo  to  make 
warm  a  spot   in   .\sia   for  the   coming   thousands.      Here  passed 
the  Poles,  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  Russia  hrst  took  up  that 
burden  on  her  western  border-the  burden  that  has  meant  riches 
and  industrial  expansion  to  her  ever  since— niaiiv  thousand  of 
them  went   this  way.     Here  she  lield  her  Cossacks,  always  in 


SIBKRIA    FROM    TUK    TRAIN 


U3 


harness  of  war.  Inirryini;-  the  laggard  and  the  fugitive.  Here, 
to-day,  when  so  much  has  been  done  and  said  and  suffered,  so 
much  spent  and  lost  and  gained,  here  passes  this  emblem  of  her 
success,  carrying  an  earnest,  even  to  the  confines  of  China,  of 
what  she  has  done  and  what  in  the  future  she  means  to  do — the 
(Ireat  Siberian  l^xpress.  Xo,  on  second  thought  there  is  no 
room  on  that  monument,  nor  yet  space  on  the  broadest  hillside 
of  her  forgotten  boundary,  to  write  the  story  that  surges  to  the 
surface  of  one's  imagination. 

The  Urals  produce,  as  everybody  knows,  most  kinds  of  pre- 
cious stones  and  vast  quantities  of  iron.     The  centre  of  the  min- 


G')ki-aiKUers  Waitini:  tur  the  Train. 

era]  industry  is  at  Zlataoust,  twenty-four  hours  beyond  Samara. 
A  lovely  glimpse  of  the  town  itself  is  caught  after  leaving  the 
station.  Ikult  in  a  valley,  it  surrounds  part  of  a  large  artificial 
lake  which  was  produced  l)y  damming  up  the  little  river  to  supply 
water-power  to  its  foundries.  This  was  not  a  success,  and  Zlata- 
oust must  forever  look  out  upon  an  expensive  failure,  which 
nevertheless  constitutes  its  chief  attraction  as  ?  town.  Almost 
before  the  train  stopped,  our  passengers  were  clustering  round 
three  kiosks  on  the  platform,  where  a  thousand  little  objects  in 
black  iron,  all  of  unspeakable  ugliness,  were  for  sale  as  souvenirs. 


4 


,34  ALL     IHL    RL  SSLAS 

An  enthusiastic  cn-incor  showed  me  the  walking-stick  he  had 
housht  of  ■■  vrai  acier."  Init,  untortunateiy,  uiien  he  bent  it  dou- 
ble on  the  platfonn  to  ^-lum  the  tmeness  of  its  metal,  the  resili- 
ence of  its  sprin-.  it  remained  in  a  disheartened  curve,  no  better 
than  a  wilted  .lahlia-stalk.  d'here  is  sure  to  be  a  bayonet  factory 
at  /dataoust.  At  Ciielyabinsk.  however,  four  hours  later,  on  the 
eastern  verge  of  the  Urals,  the  platform  output  was  charming: 
pink,  red,  and  green  jasper,  sinning  rock  crystal,  lumps  of  mal- 
achite that  had  been  suddenly  cooled  oft   while  boiling  (when 


What  V"ii  Seo  f'T  Davs  from  tlu'  Siberian  Express. 

the  world  was  made),  of  the  vivid  verdigris-green  that  is  like 
nothing  else.  The  palace^  an.l  gallerio  (-1  St.  Petersburg  and 
Moscow  are  full  of  vase,  and  tables  an.l  basins  of  these  jaspers 
and  lapis  lazuli,  and  nothing  could  be  more  beautiful  if  only  the 
makers  would  follow  classic  shapes  instead  of  choosing  as  their 
models  the  stucco  horr..rs  of  the  suburban  garden,  or  of  inlaying 
tables  with  diamond-work  in  contrasting  colours  which  ape  the 
patchwork  bed-ciuiU  of  the  cook's  aunt.  Rut  the  little  ash-trays 
in  cloudv  rose  jasper,  polishe.l  only  on  one  side,  are  the  best  pres- 


SIBERIA    FROM    THK    TRAIN 


135 


ents  to  bring  back  to  friends  who  have  been  very  good,  as  a  me- 
mento of  that  town  where  convicts  and  exiles  used  to  be  gathered 
in  enormous  sheds  and  sorted  over  before  being  drafted  to  places 
where  their  labour  was  required  or  where  their  vices— when  they 
liad  anv— would  remain  unheard  of.  To-day  every  spring  sees 
huge  crowds  of  peasant  emigrants  to  Siberia,  undergoing  ex- 
amination and  selection  at  Chelyabinsk  before  being  distributed 
according  to  a  regular  scheme  of  colonisation. 

FronrChelvabinsk  onward  the  train  crosses  the  great  Siberian 


The  Water-luwer  and  Storehouse  at  Every  Station. 


plain,  and  this  may  be  said  to  continue  as  far  as  Tomsk,  more 
than  seven  hundred  miles  away.  From  Wednesday  noon  till  Fri- 
dav  morning,  except  for  the  rivers  you  could  hardly  tell  one  piece 
of  the  monotonous  landscape  from  another.  But  the  more  you 
see  of  it,  the  more  it  appeals  to  you.  Infinitely  simple  in  its  long, 
sunburnt  expanses  to  right,  to  left,  and  behind  the  train,  dotted 
sparsely  with  meagre  beasts  which  may  be  dromedaries,  may  be 
oxen  mav  be  horses;  broken  by  tracts  of  bog  where  silver  birches, 
very  old  and  very  small,  struggle  for  their  life;   flecked  here  and 


136 


ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 


there  at  wide  intervals  by  a  wooden  hut  or  tlie  rounded  tent  of 
a  Khirg-hiz;  cut  through  by  winding  sandy  ways  where  carts 
move  Hke  tiies  in  October,  faint  and  slow— there  is  yet  something 
singularly  winning  about  this  landscape,  even  though  the  pathos 
of  miles  of  purple  heather  and  gray  and  black  moorland  is  wholly 

missing. 

For  an  idea  of  the  monotony  of  this  part  of  the  journey  I  must 
refer  the  reader  to  my  photographs.     Words  will  not  describe 
it.     Several  times  for  more  than  an  hour  the  track  is  perfectly 
straiLdit— without  even  the  suggestion  of  a  curve.     A  cannon- 
ball  tired  from  between  the  rails  would  fall  between  them  a  dozen 
miles  away,   if  the   aim   were   true  and  the   trajectory   faultless. 
There  is  positivelv  one  stretch  where  tlie  line  is  as  straight  as  a 
plumb-line  for  nearly  eighty  miles,  and  it  should  be  easy  to  imag- 
ine the  hypnotic  effect  of  sitting  in  the  middle  of  the  observation- 
car  and  watching  the  twin  lines  of  steel  unroll  themselves  from 
under  your  feet,  and  roll  away  again  out  of  Mght  over  the  edge 
of  the  world,  till  dav  passes,  and  :,unset,  llooding  the  plain  with 
gold  and  scarlet  and  j.nrple.  rvoeivcs  them  into  it>^  bla/mg  abv^s. 
Wdiat   a   honzuii,  wlial   a   -ensc  o!    -^pace   and   dvtaa-lnnriii  '       I  nc 
iviukI  brcatlK-.  the  dust  of  i-reai   ciiu-  is  a  claid  iKuhiiiL:  like  ^o 
lar-c   as  a  man      hand,  and  everything  is  far  away,  except  to- 
dav  nnrl  ve-terdav,   whicli   in   llu-  (k'-cn   and   lliv  -up]^r  arc    me 
>aiiu\  (  nie  u  iih  an*  itiivr. 

In  liie-^e  early  da\^  of  October  the  -real  bl.-M.niing  *>[  the 
plain  is  over  for  the  year.  F.ast  of  tlie  Tral^  there  i>  no  oak,  nor 
ash.  nor  elm,  nor  hazel  nor  apple,  to  ])e.»ple  tlie  landsoai)e,  and 
no  autumn-dowering  plant  blooms  beside  the  way,  only  an  m- 
tinite  variety  of  reeds,  and  where  the  tine  natural  hay  was  taken 
in  June,  a  crop  of  tall  weeds,  stark  and  l)rowii,  their  heads  still 
holding  up  the  empty  seed-vessels,  architectural  in  their  exact 
branchings.  Sometimes  in  the  black,  shallow  cutting  beside  the 
track,  whence  the  ballast  had  been  digged,  1  saw  certain  bulb- 
rooted  plants  with  round  whorls  of  leaves  that  should  have  shel- 


SIBKRIA    FROM    THE    TRAIN 


^37 


I 


\ 


tered  either  a  lily  or  an  orchid  spike  this  summer,  and  once  or 
twice  a  big  bulrush— at  least,  that  rush  which  suffered  an  aesthetic 
renaissance  in  England  under  this  name,  and  is  not  a  bulrush  at 
ail_stood  up  very  high.  Already  a  cocoon-like  fluff  was  taking 
the  place  of  the  close  brown  velvet  covering,  and  he  was  soon 
to  seed  freelv — the  familiar  sacrifice  of  the  individual  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  species.  He  will  not  be  there,  that  brown  velvet 
bulrush,  when  1  return  from  Irkutsk  in  a  month,  but  then— the 


Th^^  Regular  Silvrian  Station. 


widespread  rushv  hopes  of  next  summer!  Not  only  bulru.dies, 
but  every  kind  ()f  high-water  grass  and  reed,  the  whole  gamut 
from  grass  to  bamboo,  wave  and  whisper  and  whistle  in  wide 
beds.  At  last  vou  have  under  your  eye  the  real  country  for  the 
Marsh-King's  Daughter.  Hans  Andersen,  who  knew  marshes 
as  no  one  before  hmi  or  since,  who  has  left  in  every  teachable 
mmd  that  reads  him  some  enduring  sense  of  their  poetry,  would 
have  loved  this  part  of  Siberia.  What  romance  could  he  not 
have  written  of  these  bowed  birches,  ''  the  white  ladies  of  the  for- 


M 


:1 


•_> 


-.,  >--• » ...»*.»- 


li 


138 


ALL    THE    RUSSL\S 


est,"  with  stems  of  silver,  here  positively  frost-white,  and  fine 
purple  twigs  weeping  evenly  to  the  northward.     He  would  have 
peopled  these  thickets  of  black  alder  with  a  weird  water-life.   And 
suddenly,  after  days  of  it,  in  a  second  it  is  swept  away;    alder. 
birch,  willow,  and  reed-bed  alike  disappear,  and,  as  though  i)lanted 
by  the  hand  of  man  in  a  straight  line  across  this  worldscape,  the 
Siberian  cedar,  to  be  readily  mistaken  for  an  ill-nourished  tir-tree 
with  a  yellowish  tinge  al)out  the  needles,  springing  from  a  rich 
madder-coloured  bed  of  heath  and  heather,  usurps  the  scene.      It 
is  after  twelve  o'clock  by  local  time;   enter  the  Siberian  cedar  at 
some  mysterious  nature-cue,  exeunt  birches  and  the  rest  that  have 
followed  us  so  faitlifully  from  the  western  verges  of  Russia.     We 
are  now  to  have  nothing  but  Siberian  cedar  all  day. 

For  a  thousand  versts  this  Siberian  plain  hardly  changes  its 
character.     The  silver  bircho  are  alway-  by  our  side,  and  some- 
times the  woods  take  on  a  more  m.IuI  shape.     Round  the  settle- 
ments lierds  of  black  and  white  cou>  graze,  and  for  a  few  nnles 
we  pass  through  sttil)l)le  field-,  and  great  heap-  ot  grain,  in  -acks, 
covered  with   tarpauHii.-.   arc   i.iled   uj)  at    the   >tatiMiis  awaitmg 
transport.      l>iii  tlie<e  oa-c-  <>[  m-luMrx  liardh  couiu  m  the  h-iig 
,iiMnotM!Hm-  Mc-piH'.      i  hi.-c  a  j  urt  iirc-^.  lur  -ron])  of  Tatar-,  mme 
back  from  gi  .ld--\\a-liin-.  altracl-  artciUinii.  and  agani  we  m/c  the 
(lcva,-late(l  track  mI  a  I^utM   frc,     Oecasionaih'  we  lakr  a  iia-il  a! 
a  station,   lor   tin;   bui'u-t^   are   evcrvwherr   vsccWvul    and    put    to 
duime   the  wretched   ra,i]uav   cmuncr^  111   tlir   !:wari   •  .1   ju^pulous 
fjii^kind,      'file   -tati'Mi^   tht'iUM/lves  are  all    hrauimiih    l>ui!i    of 
wood,  neat  and  clean,  MU-rounded  with  i.rctty  paliside^  cacii  hav- 
ing  Its  water-tower  and    fir  engine  lion^e,   and   ollermg   to   the 
third-cla>s   traveller   free  boihng   water   f-r   In-   tea|)ot   and   chl 
boiled  water  to  drink.     We  pa^s  a   train  of  convict>.  gomg   to 
Irkutsk,  all  the  windows  barred  wuli  iron,  and  a  -entrv  wuh  nxrd 
bayonet  at  the  entrance  of  each  carriage,     l^v  showing  mv  off  cial 
letter  to  the  colonel  in  command  1  get  permission  to  pa>^  through 
the  train.    The  prisoners  consi>t  of  convicts,  in  chains,  and  simple 


.vv«.>•k.'.uV*l:u■^  ' 


SIBKRIA    FROM    THE   TRAIN 


139 


exiles,  the  wives  and  children  of  the  latter  accompanying  them. 
Their  accommodation  is  warm  and  comfortable,  and  except  some 
of  the  convicts,  who  are  obviously  savages,  they  seem  in  good 
spirits.  Several  times,  too,  we  meet  trains  of  returning  colonists, 
who  have  either  been  to  Siberia  for  the  harvest,  or  are  returning 
disappointed  and  dissatisfied.  This  latter  category  includes  a 
regular  percentage  of  all  who  emigrate  voluntarily. 

The  vast  agricultural  plain  is,  of  course,  the  predominatmg 
impression  \chhy  this  journey;    indeed,  there  is  no  other  such 


Siberian  feasants  Watchinsz  ihe  Train. 


plain  ill  tiic  world.  Stati-iics  of  tin-  mzc  of  S,l.cr,a  may  be  lound 
in  ,vcrv  bonk  of  reference,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  reprodnce 
some  (^f  them  when  describing  a  journey  tlirough  the  land.  It 
is  then  over  ^.ooo.ooo  square  miles  m  area,  half  as  large  agam 
as  the  whole  of  Europe;  it  covers  3-^  degrees  of  lat.tude,  and 
no  fewer  than  no  <legrees  of  longitude:  it  possesses  a  mag- 
nificent series  of  rivers  runnmg  with  fan-like  branches  north 
and  south,  with  a  total  navigable  length  of  27,920  miles;   some 


I  * 

i 


\l 


140 


AM.     IHl-    KISS  IAS 


of  these  rivers  have  been  i)r(.vecl  to  be  easily  riavi-able  with  care 
from  the  Arctic  Sea,  and  so  a>ioni>hni-iy  complete  is  tins  natural 
network  of  waterways  that,  wuh  the  aid  of  one  canal,  steamers 
of  a  considerable  size  liave  been  built  in  Kn-land  and  taken  under 
their  own  steam  to  Lake  F»aikal,  nearly  3,500  miles  east  of  Mos- 
cow. The  zone  of  colonisation  lie^  to  the  south  of  ()4  decrees 
north  latitude,  for  al)ove  this  is  the  zone  of  polar  tundra— :\  wilder- 
ness of  marsh  and  moss,  with  stunted  bushes  for  its  only  vegeta- 
tion, frozen  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  and  incapal)le 
of  supporting  any  life  except  that  of  the  scattered  tribes  of  Arctic 


Buildinu  .1  Hut   m   \hc    Taiua. 

natives  who  roam  about  and  maiiai^e  not  to  perisli  m  it.  lUit 
^oxnh  ot  this  there  1-  m  W'e-teni  Sil)ena  almic  a  cultivable  area 
of  six  thousand  geographicrd  scjuare  tuiles. 

■  The  landscape  changes  a  third  time  between  ^^)scow  and 
Irkutsk.  This  is  at  Taiga,  whence  a  branch  line  of  tlfty-four 
miles  leads  to  Tomsk.  The  word  Taii^a  means  primeval  forest. 
A  couple  of  years  ago  this  place  was  but  a  name  and  a  sto|)pmg- 
place  for  the  trains.  To-day  it  is  a  smart  Httle  town  and  growing 
fast.     Beyond  it  the  line  plunges  into  the  virgin  woods.     The 


SlBi^RIA    FROM    THE    TRAIN 


141 


first  passenger  train  left  it,  eastward  bound,  on  New  Year's  Day, 
1899,  and  the  bridge  at  Krasnoyarsk  was  only  finished  in  March 
of  the  same  year,  permitting  trains  to  proceed  without  a  break 
to  Irkutsk,  the  present  terminus.     Our  train  has  no  longer  an 
engine  with  air-compressor  for  the  Westinghouse  brake,  there- 
for'^e  our  si)eed,  never  great,  dwindles  to  a  crawl,  and  for  nearly 
a  thousand  miles,  from  Friday  till  Monday,  we  dawdle  along, 
almost  always  through  an  unbroken  forest  of  silver  birch,  pine, 
larch  and  cedar,  with  occasional  clearings  and  innumeral)le  little 
stations.     From  the  train  only  small  timber  is  in  sight,  but  back 
in  the  forest  there  is  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  serviceable  trees, 
and  a  special  department  has  been  recently  created  for  the  eco- 
nomic deforestation  of  these  Siberian  provinces,  the  outlet  being 
a  great  timber  port  to  be  formed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ob.     At 
each  station  we  make  a  long  halt.     They  are  charming  places, 
admirably  built,  and  prettily  decorated,  and  round  each  of  them 
a  circle  of  civilisation  is  spreading.    At  last,  at  noon  on  Monday, 
nine  days  and  3,371  miles  from  Moscow,  after  passing  a  zone^of 
rolling  country  with  Highland  scenery,  we  come  in  sight  of  a 
large  town  encircled  by  a  great  river,  its  churches  and  pul)lic 
buildings  visible  from  far  away.    This  is  Irkutsk,  the  end.  f(^r  the 
pre.seiu.  of  the  (ireat  Siberian  Railway,  the  ^)oun(lary  of  luistern 
Siberia,  the  junction  of  Europe,  so  to  speak,  for  trade  by  land 
with  Peking,  and  not  much  more  than  a  hundred  miles  from  the 
frontier  of  I  hina. 


1 


V  •.'■.  ^^\S'  \'  '•'^"\'  «■-•■:■*••-■•■->  »^  v»-  *~ v>'" 


'.  1 1 '*  ryt  %t  v^^  <^  • ' 


.v.'t'xvT**,-^*^!* !.»,«■.**«>■>■«'  .■»ru.»»»'«'**  ' 


CFIAP'I  I.R    IX 

SIBKRIAN    CIVILISAIION 

TfIR  chief  towns  l^{  Siberia  are  natiirnllv  ^iil  thovc  that  had 
i^ruw  11  iij)  and  il«  'uridk'*!  heloia-  the  railway  wa^  e*  awtruetcd 

(  )ni.k,    Kra^novardx,    TMindx,    and    liixuidv.      Uiiier-    will    nt 

ci)iir:^e  soon  he  created,  and  ni  ;^everal  cases  they  wiil  ^npcrsede 

the  old  ones.  After  a 
thousand  versts  of  the  Si- 
])erian  plain  the  first  im- 
portant station,  Omsk,  is 
a  genuine  surprise.  At 
dusk  you  pass  over  the 
great  river  with  a  well-lit 
passenger  steamer  plying 
upon  it — pass  over  it  by 
a  handsome  girder  bridge. 
Then  a  promising  net- 
work of  sidings  begins,  and,  after  the  manner  of  Siberian 
trains,  von  steal  verv  slowly  into  the  electric-lit  station  of 
(  hnsk.  A  neat  and  pretty  brick  building  greets  you,  the  silent, 
impassive  figures  ui  peasants  in  sheepskins  grouped  about 
its  doors.  You  pass  into  the  usual  hall  which  is  waiting-room 
and  restaurant  combined;  well-set  tables  with  tall  palms — 
Hnnaiion  palms  of  course — standing  in  them,  and  tall  crystal 
candelabra  veiled  in  red  muslin.  At  one  side  is  the  tea-counter, 
ii:.  biabS  samovar  purring  softly;  at  another  a  display  of  hot  dishes 
to  tempt  the  hungry,  with  a  cJicf  of  smiling  face  and  much-starched 

iuicii  wavnig  his  knife  above  the  baked  meats.     The  proffered 

142 


The 


>wcr    in 


,f    til,,    p 


irc  vvih 


kiitsk. 


:^■.^..,,-■^ 


W 


fV^ 


bilif-.RlAN    ClXlf  JnATK  )\ 


T4.5 


i^. 


meal  was  so  attractive  t1iat  we  took  it  here  instead  of  in  tlie  res- 
tciurant-car,  and  ncjthing  could  ha\-e  been  ])elter.  The  town  e)f 
Om^k  i-  onlv  Tom^k  on  a  smaller  scale,  and  Tom<k  ha^^  a  m_\  -ier\ 
of  its  o\\  n.  It  was  orii'inallv  selected  for  the  administrative  and 
edncaiional  centre  of  Sd)eria.  and  its  public  buildin,^^  were  erect- 
ed on  this  scale.  Its  university  is  splendidly  housed:  it  ha>  an  am- 
bitious theatre;  one  of  the  three  Government  gold  laboratories 
is  there;  the  i)rison  was  the  principal  distributing  station  of  Si- 
beria; it  is  lighted  l)y  electricity;  it  is  the  focus  of  a  great  agri- 
cultural district;  it  has  oxer  so.ooo  inhabitants;  there  was  everv 
reason  to  suppose  that  its  happy  development  would  be  parallel 
with  that  of  the  railway  itself.  To-day  it  is  going  down-hill,  for 
the  sim])le  reason  that  the  railway  is  hfty-four  miles  away — a 
journey  of  fi\e  hours — and  that  even  then  the  station  is  a  long 
drive  through  the  woods  from  the  town.  I  heard  many  explana- 
tions of  this  extraordinary  arrangement:  that  the  land  around 
the  town  was  too  swampy,  that  too  costly  bridges  would  have 
had  to  be  built,  that  the  engineers  who  laid  out  the  line  left  the 
town  aside  because  its  inhabitants  would  not  agree  to  certain  con- 
ditions advantageous  to  the  proposers.  Which  is  true  I  do  not 
know,  but  it  is  certain  that  Taiga,  the  station  for  Tomsk  on  the 
main  line,  was  only  a  couple  of  tents  in  the  wilderness  three  years 
ago,  and  that  to-day  it  is  a  considerable  settlement,  growing 
rapidly  into  a  town,  destined  beyond  question  to  thrive  at  the 
expense  of  the  city  so  proudly  planned  to  be  the  heart  of  Si- 
beria. Tomsk  reminds  one  of  a  rapidly  grown  Western  Ameri- 
can town,  except  that  it  has  several  far  finer  permanent  build- 
ings. The  streets  are  its  least  civilised  characteristic,  for,  except 
in  w'inter,  they  are  either  ankle-deep  in  dust  or  knee-deep  in 
mud,  and  winter  comes  so  suddenly  that  the  townspeople  some- 
times wade  through  mud  to  the  theatre  and  find  the  roads  frozen 
solid  when  they  come  out,  while  by  next  morning  there  are 
thirty  degrees  of  frost. 

Omsk,  to  my  thinking,  will  necessarily  become  the  chief  Si- 


'  4  .s .  r,' 


• 


f 


I  I 


146 


ALL    THE    RUSSIAS 


berian  town,  because  of  its  magnificent  waterways,  its  siirround- 
ino-  ai^-riculture,  its  gokl-nnmno-,  and,  above  all.  its  proxiinitv 
to  the  colossal  deposits  of  coal  that  liave  ])een  discovered  to  the 
south  of  it,  the  copper-mines  not  far  ott,  and  the  probal)ihty  that 
some  day  a  railway  will  run  southeast  from  it  to  connect  Siberia 

with  Central  Asia. 

For  the  present,  however,  Irkutsk  Is  a  more  important  place, 
and  indeed,  at  hrst  si^ht,  as  it  nestle,  within  the  embrace  ot  the 
broad  Angara,  it  is  charming,  and  one  is  astonished  at  the  pro- 
portion of  imposing  buildings  rising  from  the  tlat  brown  mass  of 
wooden  houses.     A  second  suri)rise  is  that  the  suburb  where  the 
station  is  situated  is  called  (dascow.     lUit  when  you  drive  away 
through  mud  a  couple  of  feet  deep,  in  which  the  droschky  rolls 
about  so  alarmingly  that  people  invariably  ride  with  their  arms 
about  each  others'  waists,  you  fear  that  first  appearances  were  de- 
ceptive.    The  streets,  in  fact,  are  awful,  and  the  local  paper  of 
the  morning  after  my  arrival  told  how  two  little  l)oys  returning 
from  school  fell  in  the  middle  of  the  street  and  were  only  just 
rescued  from  drowning  by  some  passing  carters,     ^'our  first  im- 
pression, however,  returns  and  remains  when  you  have  seen  more 
of  this  remote  Siberian  capital.      It    1^  an  a.tonishiiio-  place. 

Here  are  a  few  plain  facts  to  begin  with.     Irkutsk  has  51,4^^ 
inhal)itants.     It  spends  ten  per  cent,  of  its  munici|)al  income  on 
primary    education.      It    has    ^xx<^    hospitals   and    thirty    doctors. 
There   is  an   astronomical   and   meteorological   observatory,   of 
which   the   magnetic   observations   possess  peculiar   importance. 
Its  theatre,  a  handsome  building  of  brick  and  stone,  cost  over 
£30,000.     There  is  a  museum,  an  offshoot  of  the  Russian  Geo- 
graphical  Society,   with   an   extremely   interesting   ethnological 
collection,  as  well  as  almost  complete  collections  of  the  birds 
and   animals   of  the   district.      From   its   telegraph   of^ce   mes- 
sages can  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the  world  in  any  language,  but 
I  must  add  that  a  telegram  sent  to  me  from  London  on  Monday 
was  only  delivered  at  midday  on  Friday.     There  is  a  perfectly 
organised  telephone  service,  and  the  outlying  manufactories,  one 


SIBKRIAN    CIVILISATION 


H7 


of  them  as  much  as  sixty  miles  away,  are  all  connected  with  the 
city  by  telephone.  A  fire-extinguishing  service  is  excellently 
equipped  with  an  English  steam  fire-engine  among  other  appar- 
atus, and  I  saw  some  smart  drill.  Finally,  besides  an  imposing 
cathedral,  Irkutsk  boasts  no  fewer  than  twenty  Orthodox 
churches,  one  Roman  Catholic  and  one  Lutheran  chapel,  two 
synagogues,  and  two  monasteries,  for  in  Siberia  a  greater  re- 
ligious tolerance  exists  than  in  Russia.  That  is  not  a  bad  list 
for  a  town  which,  until  a  few  months  ago,  could  only  be  reached 


The  Technical  School,  Irkutsk. 

by  an  exhausting  journey  of  several  weeks,  driving  at  full  speed 
day  and  night. 

There  is  an  air  of  well-being  about  the  place,  however,  which 
says  more  than  any  catalogue  of  facts.  I  have  seldom  been  more 
surprised  than  when,  on  the  evening  of  my  arrival,  I  started  out 
to  make  a  few  purchases.  I  wanted  some  sardines  and  sugar 
and  similar  supplies,  and  I  found  myself  in  a  shop  which  for  size, 
arrangement,  and  variety  of  stock  would  compare  with  those  of 
the  West  End  of  London,  except,  ])erhaps,  such  exceptional  pur- 
vevors  of  luxuries  as  ^lorell's  and  Fortnum  &  Mason's.  Next 
I  wanted  some  photographic  materials,  and  the  first  thing  that 
caught  my  eye  was  a  complete  assortment  of  Zeiss  lenses,  of  the 
latest  pattern — the  most  expensive  lenses  in  the  market.     Two 


148 


ALL    IHI'.    RUSSIAS 


3 


stationers-   shops  and  a  chemisfs  were  certainly  equal   to   the 
average  of  such  places  it,  any  of  the  capitals  of  the  world,  and  m 
another  I  saw  such  a  stock  of  guns,  nlles,  revolvers,  cutlery,  and 
electric  fittings  as  1  have  never  seen  in  one  place  before.    I  should 
be  at  a  loss  where  to  look  in  London  for  such  a  selection  ot  tele- 
phones for  instance,  of  every  make  and  size,  as  were  displayed  in 
this  Siberian  shop.    Such  things  would  not  be  brought  all  these 
thousands  of  miles  unless  there  were  people  who  understood  them 
and  could  afford  to  buv  them,  and  it  is  this  inference  which  causes 
the  surprise.     Similarlv.  the  outsides  of  the  houses,  with  their 
thick  wooden   walls  and  stoutly  barred  gates,   do  not   suggest 
wealth  and  culture:    but  when  you  have  passed  some  of  these 
outer  barriers  vou  fi.nl  vonrself  in  homes  which,  for  luxury  an<l 
taste,  are  in  no  wav  behind  rich  men's  houses  clscuhcre  m  the 
world  and  where  vou  are  enierlainc.l  with  a  h,.spitahiv  as  lavish 
and  as  elegant  as  that  of  -Mayfair.     These  belong  10  men  who 
have  ma<le  great  fortunes  in  Siberia  and  who  are  happy  to  re- 
main there.     Thev  are  generous  men.  too.  and  there  are  proba- 
bly few  towns  of  its  size  in  the  world  with  .0  many  monuments 
of  private  beneficence  in  the  >hape  of  schools.  ho>pUals.  orphan- 
ages, and  the  like. 

Irkutsk,  however,  is  not  saved  by  its  churches  fn,m  an  amount 
of  crime,  actual  and  potential,  that  would  be  consulered  excessive 
in  a  new  mining-camp.    The  night  before  I  amved  a  church  was 
ransacked  of  its  plate;  the  night  of  my  arrival  the  principal  jewel- 
ler's shop  was  robbed :  a  few  days  later  a  flourishing  manufactory 
of  false  passport s-a  peculiarly  heinous  crime  in   Russia--vvas 
raided  bv  the  police;   the  day  1  visited  the  prison  a  man  clubbed 
nearly  to  death,  who  never  recovered  consciousness,  was  picked 
up  in  the  street;  a  short  time  previously  the  mail,  carrying  gold- 
dust  had  been  ambushed  and  three  of  its  armed  guards  shot ;  and 
no  respectable  citizen  would  dream  of  passing  alone  through  its 
suburbs  after  <lark.     Indeed  people  often  fire  a  revolver  shot  out 
of  the  window  before  going  to  bed,  to  remind  whom  it  may  con- 
cern that  a  strong  man  armed  keepeth  his  goods.     I  do  not  know 


SlBERIAxN    CIVILISATION 


149 


how  many  ])olice  there  are  in  this  city  oi  50,000  ])eople.  but 
during  the  week  of  my  stay  1  saw  only  two  or  three,  and  once 
when  1  had  to  drive  across  the  town  at  nine  o'clock  at  night  I  did 
not  see  a  single  living  thing  out  of  doors. 

The  principal  shops  and  the  best  houses  are  all  in  one  street, 
and  as  the  side  streets  get  farther  from  this  they  become  poorer 
and  rougher.  There  is  something  suggestive  of  China  in  long 
stretches  of  wooden  walls  and  heavy  gates.  There  are,  of  course, 
hundreds  of  Chinese  about,  and  rows  of  Chinese  shops,  where  the 
furniture,  the  clothing,  the  tea,  and  the  various  culinary  and 


The  Museum,  Irkutsk. 

medicinal  abominations  dear  to  the  Celestial  mind  are  for  sale. 
Stolid  Mongols,  too,  hung  with  silver,  have  come  through  with 
their  caravans  from  China,  and  every  now  and  then  you  see  a 
tired  passenger  stretched  out  in  a  tarantass  amid  liis  hetero- 
geneous luggage,  who  has  probably  been  driving  day  and  night 
for  a  week  or  two,  for  Irkutsk  is  the  focus  of  five  great  post  roads. 
The  hotel  is  a  trial  to  mind  and  body,  but  a  new  one,  the  Metro- 
pole,  is  just  completed  and  will  apparently  offer  more  civilised  ac- 
commodation. Living  is,  of  course,  very  dear,  as  everything, 
except  meat  and  flour  and  beer — an  enterprising  German  is  coin- 
ing money  by  brewing  excellent  lager — h.Ts  to  be  brought  so  far 


i^o  ALL     IHK    KUSSLAS 

by  rail.     One  of  my  most  interesting  visits  was  to  the  Govern- 
ment Gold  Laboratory,  where  the  director  was  kind  enough  to 
have  a  special  operation  of  weighing  a.ul  smelting  the  dust  car- 
ried out  for  my  benefit.    Gold  is  disposed  of  in  Siberia  in  a  wholly 
different  manner  from  elsewhere.     Every  grain  of  it  has  to  be 
sold  to  the  Government,  and  heavy  penalties  attach  even  to  the 
private  possession  of  raw  gold.     But  as  -  illicit  diamond-buying  " 
exists  at  Kimberley,  so  illicit  gold-l)uying  nourishes  at  Irkutsk, 
and  the  Chinese  merchants  are  the  offenders.    They  hang  a  few 
furs  outside  a  shop,  or  put  a  few  chests  of  tea  in  the  wiiulow, 
but  this  is  merelv  a  blind,  for  they  make  big  prot.ts  by  buying 
gold-dust,  in  (|uantities  from  a  i.inch  to  a  pocketful,  and  smug- 
gling it  across  the  frontier  into  China,  where  there  has  long  been 
a   ti-reat  market   tor  it   at    iilagovyeshchcnsk.     The  mines  pay  a 
small  rent  to  the  Government,  and  a  varying  percentage  upon 
their  output.     Ordinary  mines  pay  three  per  cent.,  more  pro- 
ductive ones  ten  per  cent.,  uhile  lho>c  >it,KUe<l  upon  the   I'.m- 
pcror-s   i.rivate  property   pay   as   much   as  fifteen   per   cent.      In 
leather  l)ags  containing  aboiU   a   pond  each    i  ,V  1'',).   the   .hi>l 
is  sent  l.v  mail,  the  p<'st  undertaking  the  ni^nrance  of  each  bag 
f,„.    about     14.000    rouble^.      At    the    labor,„or>     u    1=    weighed, 
nu.xed   wnh   borax,   aiul   melted    m    eruobU-   iMor-an'..   one   of 
the    few    things   of    llnti-li    make    I    .aw    111    Siberia),   the   ingots 
assaved    and    weighed,    and    an    -  .assi^naf "    for    the    vahie    at 
Government    rate-,.   k->   the   tax,   a    charge   tor   Laboratory   lees. 
the  cost  of  transmission  to  St.   lVter>burg.  an,l  a  certain  small 
margin,  given  to  the  owner.    This  •'  assignai  "  can  be  cashed  im- 
mediatelv.  or  can  be  used  as  a  bank-note.     When  a  large  .|uantity 
has  accumulate.l.  it  is  sent  in  a  special  wag.Mi,  under  an  armed 
guard  to  St.  Petersburg.  an,l  when  the  Irkutsk  weights  and  as- 
savs  have  been  verified,  the  margin  is  paid  to  the  owner.     1  he 
strong-room  contained  tier  upon  tier  .^f  bright  ingots,  weighing 
from 'a  few  pounds  to  more  than  I  could  lilt.     This  treasure,  it 
seemed  to  me,  was  very  insufficiently  guarded,  and  when  I  re- 


SIBKRIAN    CIVILISATION 


'S' 


marked  upon  this  to  the  Director,  he  told  me  that  for  a  good 
many  years  a  force  of  Cossacks  kept  watch  every  night,  but  since 
they' once  stole  the  whole  contents  of  the  strong-room  a  couple 
of  civilian  guards  have  been  employed. 

The  laboratory  at  Irkutsk  was  built  in  1870,  and  since  that 
time  it  has  received  a  total  amount  of  i.i7345'J  l'^-  avoirdupois 
of  gold,  or,  I  suppose,  considerably  over  £60,000,000.  There  are 
three  such  laboratories  in  Russia,  the  others  being  at  Tomsk  for 


The  C.ithedral.  Irkutsk, 

Central  Siberia,  and  Ekaterinburg  for  the  Ural  district.  In  1896 
Russia  produced  loi  per  cent,  of  the  gold  of  the  world.  Up  to 
tlie  present  year,  from  1754.  when  she  began  to  find  gold,  she 
cannot  have  taken  much  less  than  £.'50,000,000  from  her  own 
soil.  The  production  of  gold,  however,  is  decreasing  in  I-Jussia, 
and  in  Siberia  the  richer  mines  are  giving  smaller  returns.  Against 
this  must  be  set  the  discovery  of  valuable  gold-fields  farther 
north;  the  willingness  of  the  Tsar  to  lease  to  private  companies 
some  of  his  own  verv  valuable  mines  that  have  hitherto  been  very 


IS2 


ALL    THE    RUSSLAS 


inadequately  worked;  and  the  fact  that  the  science  of  -old-ex- 
traction has  made  such  progress  of  late  that  the  mines  supposed 
to  be  worked  out  by  the  hrst-comers  many  years  ago,  can  now 
be  made  to  yield  a  handsome  profit  again.     The  chief  difficulty 

in  Siberian  gold-mining  is 
labour.     There  is  no  skilled 
personnel    to    be    had,    and 
the    conditions    of    life    at 
points   remote   from   ci\ili- 
sation   are   so  disagreeable 
that   labourers  often   leave 
as     soon     as     they     have 
amassed   a    small    sum.      1 
mav    add    liere    my    l)elief 
that    Russia  has  secured  in 
Mongnjia    a    tract    of    ex- 
trcniclx   noli  auriferous  tcr- 
\-\{i  >r\ .  but  this  1^  jeal«  ius|\- 
hc'M  !•>   a  grr.up  o\  Peters- 
burg  capitanstv^    riii<!er   <  >! 
firial    prr>t itik  ^n,     antl    the 
[•reign     investor     is     not 
likely  to  secure  an  inch  of 
It.      But    for    the    disturb- 
ances  in    China    1    believe 
that      these      gold  -  fields 


«» 


w«  -ulo     li' 


]far( 


ten     sensa- 

b  c  i  o  r  c 


( ( 


P()C»r  Silx'ri.ui  l*easant. 


\M  iiiaM \' 

now. 

IrkiUsk    is,    uf    course, 

typical  onlv  of  the  civilisation  of  Siberia  in  the  town'^.  The 
little  settlements  tell  a  different  tale.  Many  of  them  are  doing 
well  enough  as  regard^  agriculture,  but  the  extreme  loneli- 
ness of  the  life,  and   the   lengtli  of  the  winter,  are  producing 


(  r 


SIBKRIAN    CIVILISATION 


'53 


I 


!. 


li 


a  peculiar  Sil)erian   type  of  people— silent,  morose,   inexpres- 
sibly  sad.      Among   the   lowest   classes,    too,   these   conditions, 
with  the  i)resence  of  so  large  a  pi-oportion  of  criminals,  inevit- 
ably breed  their  own  series  of  crimes.     The  future  of  Siberia, 
however,    obviously    depends    upon    the    success   or    faikf  e    of 
the  Trans-Siberian   Railway,  and  this  is  a  question  asked  with 
great  earnestness  in   Russia  and  of  almost  equal  interest  else- 
where.     Will  it  pay?     Will  this  gigantic  enterprise  be  a  suc- 
cess—tinancial,  conunercial  strategic?     Russians  themselves  are 
by  no  means  unanimous  in  reply.     There  are  those  who  declare 
that  it  will  not  only  give  Russia  the  ultimate  mastery  of  Asia,  but 
that  it  will  also  pay  a  handsome  dividend.    On  the  other  hand,  I 
have  heard  it  called  a  white  elephant,  a  huge  humbug  and  a  finan- 
cial nullstone.     1  may  admit  that  I  approached  the  railway  with 
manv  ])rejudices  against  it.     Some  years  ago  I  studied  its  begin- 
ning m  Vladivostok;    1  have  since  been  over  the  whole  of  the 
line^'that  is  open,  and  as  far  as  Lake  Baikal  on  the  uncompleted 
section;    and    I   had  many  conversations  with  engineers  and  of- 
ficials closely  connected   with  all  parts  of  it.     I  have  therefore 
some  grouii''ls  for  an  o])niion.  and  1  liave  certainly  come  to  tlie 
coiu-luHMii  iliat  the  enterprise  is  of  vast  promise  to  Ru-<ia,  and 
oi  oiiial  H-iiilicance  to  Europe,  and  to  Great  Britain  most  of  all. 
As  regards  the  financial    pr.-]KCis  of  ilii:r>  gigantic  railway 
any  opinion  as  yet  must,  of  course,  be  of  the  nature  of  a  guess. 
It  is  fairly  obvious  that  through  passenger  iralfic  will  nni  pay  at 
the  very  low  rates  now  cliarged.  wliile  if  tlie  rate-  are  raided  to 
a  pavnig  standard  they  xNuuld  l-e  prohil)itive  to  nu-t  passengers. 
xl-uher  can  through  goods  traffic  l)e  protnable.  a^  few  classes  oi 
merchandise,  except  tea,  and  perhaps  silk,  could  support  the  co^t 
of  upwards  of  5,000  miles  of  railway  transport,  in  competition 
with  an  alternative,  if  much  longer,  sea  route.     It  is  the  enlight- 
ened policy  of  the  railway  authorities,  moreover,  to  charge  as 
little  for  goods  proportionately  as  for  passengers.     For  example, 
bar  steel  is  carried  from  the  Gulf  of  Finland  to  Krasnoyarsk,  in 


t"i 


154 


ALL    IHi;    RUSSIAS 


Siberia,  say,  3,300  miles,  at  the  charoc  of  al)out  £3  per  ton.  This 
figure  was  given  to  nie  by  an  luighsh  merchant  in  Krasnoyarsk. 
Machinery  between  the  same  points  costs  £10  per  ton.  Such 
rates  make  for  the  development  of  the  country,  but  not  for  the 
dividends  of  the  railway/'^ 

When  we  look  at  local  traffic,  however,  a  very  different  pict- 
ure presents  itself.  Already  the  demand  for  transport  far  ex- 
ceeds the  supply.  Acres  of  sacks  of  wheat  he  piled  up,  waiting 
for  the  railway  to  take  them  away.  Agriculture  here  is  still  in 
its  infancy,  yet  in  1898,  the  latest  statistical  year,  Siberia  pro- 
duced 1,000.000  tons  of  wheal.  730,ocx)  tons  of  oats,  j,5()o,o(X) 
tons  of  grain  of  all  kinds,  and  3J5,ooo  tons  of  ])otatoes.  Already 
last  vear  2,500  American  agricultural  implements  were  sold  m 
5il3eria — more  to  the  culluated  acre  than  in  Ru>Ma;  McC or- 
mick's  posters  are  m  every  village,  and  1  )eering  maohme^  have 
a  strong  foothi)l(l;  in  'funisk  there-  1-  a  eeinrai  (lep«'>t  where  toui"- 
teen    agncuhural    implement    maker-    are    re])re-erue(l.       r.niiMi 


iirm>,  uiifonunaiel)',  are  a^ii-^i 
for  a   1 1  me  w  u  ii 


>  K'l  I  a)  u  ■ 


i\  I  iieir  a1 1'-aiice.     1  U'-i^ 


\a;i  [ei 


1    i   1  V 


il«;e  and  exi'iaieiiceu  repre>eniati\  e  of  an 
Aiiveruan  In  in  «  i  agricultural  machine  manufacturers,  who  was 
(leligliicd,  and  wiili  good  reason,  at  his  prospects  in  Siberia. 
It  the  microbic  fertilisation  of  land  becomes  a  success,  its  influ- 

*  An  attempt  is  announced  to  establish  a  connection  between  the  Russian  and 
United  States  railways,  via  Bering  Strait.  A  company  called  the  Trans-Alaskan  Rail- 
way Co.  is  stated  to  have  been  incorporated  at  Seattle,  Washington  State,  with 
aeapital  of  >^f> '««•*«»«»  ''-  avowed  object  being  the  construction  of  a  line  through 
Alaska  to  some  point  .  .  .r  Cape  Prince  of  Wales.  Mr.  Harry  de  Windt,  the  well- 
known  traveller,  who  nearly  lost  his  life  on  a  similar  previous  journey,  is  said  to  be 
planning,  witli  the  assistance  of  the  Russian  and  American  Ciovernments,  to  start  from 
Irkutsk,  in  December,  1901,  for  Yakutsk,  1,800  miles  by  sleigh;  thence  to  Nijni 
Kolymsk,  the  sib  '  rr,r>  .r,  Kussian  settlement,  where  the  population  is  chiefly  com- 
posed of  political  exiles,  another  1,600  miles  by  reindeer  teams;  and  thence  to  the 
stioir  .,1  I'.rrin-  ^tr:at,  whiih  is  only  about  36  miles  wide  at  its  narrowest  point,  and 
^v-Iuch  he  will  cros^  cuIut  nn  ilu'  Uv  .t  in  :va  Aincrican  rrvonue  cutter,  returning  to 
Civilisation  l.v  the  \-ukon  or  M:u,krn/u-  Kivrr.  ^udi  a  r.uhvav  enterprise  appears 
wholly  ehimerieah  aiel  it  x^  \m:rcMAv  ih.n  l\u-  i<u>^ian  (  ,.  .vcrnna-nt  ^h.ail-I  seriously 
Contemplate  it  while  >o  many  nioic  p!onuMn>;  j.art^  o!  Ku-Ma  an-  m  -r''-^'  i'^'^''^  *>f 
railway  facilities. 


SIBKRIAN    CIVHJSATION 


155 


ence  upon  Siberian  agriculture,  where  cliemical  manures  are  out 
of  the  ((uestion,  will  be  incalculable.     There  is  a  new  world  of 


i 


aoricultural  and  mineral  wealth  waiting  beyond  the  Baikal, 
new  railway,  to  con- 
nect the  Trans-Sibe- 
rian with  the  Trans- 
CasiMan.  will  be  built 
before  many  years 
elapse,  bringing  new 
supi)lies,  creating 
new  demands,  and 
providing  a  new  safe- 
guard against  famine. 
The  gold  ont])Ut  of  Si- 
beria, of  which   I  have 


A 


'm 


al  ready 

1 


) 


UMven  the 
.sinking  ligure>.  will 
be  largelv  inereahcd 
when  the  present  min 
ing  laws  are  modified, 
and  the  mines  thrown 
open  to  the  improved 
methods  and  ampler 
capital  of  the  West — 
a  state  of  things  which 

Russia  is  ready  to  wel-  ' 
come.       At     a     place  ^ 
called  Ekibas-tuz,  near 
Pavlodar,  to  the  south 

of  Omsk,  and  only 
sixtv-ix  miles  from  the  great  Irtysh  River— to  whicli  a  line  of 
raihvav  was  linished.  two  years  ago,  and  three  l')aldwin  locomo- 
tives sent — are  coal  deposits  which  an  English  engineer  declared 
to  me  to  l)e  the  largest  in  the  world,  a  seam  running  for  miles  of 


Prosperous  Siberi;in  Peasant. 


*a 


156 


ALL    THi:    RISSIAS 


the  almost  incredible  thickness  of  three  hundred  feet.  X'ast  quan- 
tities of  coke  will  he  pt'oduccd  here,  shipped  down  the  Irtysh  to 
Tiumen,  and  thence  transported  to  the  I'rals  for  the  iron  works 
— a  supply  the  importance  of  which  will  be  ap})reciated  by  those 
who  know  anythini;-  about  the  iron  indtistrw  Xear  this  are  very 
rich  copper  mines,  and  it  is  certain  that  minerals  will  be  discovered 
in  other  parts.  The  transi)ortation  of  convicts  to  Siberia  will 
shortly  cease,  and  last  year  J23.9CS1  eiuii^rants  of  both  sexes 
crossed  the  Urals,  making  a  total  of  close  tipon  1,000.000  since 
1893. 

I  ha\e  perhai)s  now  said  enoti_i;h  to  justify  in  some  decree  my 
own  belief  that  the  develo])ment  of  Siberia  is  destined  to  be  a 
handsome  reward  for  the.  efYorts  and  expendittire  so  lavishly 
devoted  to  it. 


CHAPTER   X 
THE    PRISON   OF    IRKUTSK 

FROM  gold,  which  H.   E.  General  Goremykin,  Governor- 
General  of  the   Irkutsk   Government— whom   I   must   not 
forget  to  thank  for  all  the  facilities  he  aiTorded  me— calls  ■'  the 
cneniv  of  Siberia,"  it  is  a  natural  step  to  crime,  and  of  course  1 
spent  some  time  at  the  famous  prison  of  Irkutsk.     It  is  a  great, 
square,   whitewashed    brick   building,    surrounding   a  courtyard, 
with  a' number  of  smaller  wooden  buildings  adjacent,  the  whole 
enclosed,  except  on  the  front,  by  an  enormous  wooden  palisade 
of  logs,  twenty  feet  high,  sharpened  at  the  end.     I  went  into 
€ver\  part  of  the  prison  that  I  could  see,  including  the  hospital, 
the  workshops,  the  laundry,  and  the  kitchens,  and  visited  every 
one  of  the  large  rooms  and  almost  every  cell.     In  all  these  I  saw 
but  two  things  to  find  fault  with— the  practice  of  herding  to- 
gether criminals  of  all  ages,  tried  and  untried,  and  the  long  time, 
in  some  cases  amounting  to  two  years,  which  many  of  the  prison- 
ers spend  there  before  their  cases  are  finally  judged.    This  latter 
evil  is  caused  partly  by  the  great  difficulty  of  collecting  evidence 
from   manv   parts  of   Siberia,  but   chiefly   because   the   central 
authorities'  do  not  supply  magistrates  enough  to  cope  with  the 
numbers    of   those    arrested.      An    additional    difficulty    is    the 
varietv  of  languages  spoken  by  the  criminals  themselves :   three 
times 'during  my  visit  was  the  governor,  who  accompanied  me 
most  of  the  time,  obliged  to  send  to  another  part  of  the  prison 
for  a  prisoner  to  interpret  a  request  made  to  him  as  we  passed. 
The  prison  is  supposed  to  hold  only  700  criminals,  but  it 
contained  1.024  men  on  the  day  of  my  visit,  12  women,  and  10 


^3/ 


y 


158 


ALL  iht:  russl\s 


children  accompanyini;-  their  niotliers.     Of  these  no  fewer  than 
621  were  awaitino-  trial,  13S  were  condemned  for  detinite  periods 
not  exceedini^  three  years,  which  they  will  serve  in  this  prison, 
and  286  were  "  in  transit,"  mostly   either  to  the  i^reat  convict 
prison  of  Alexandrofsk,  forty-six  nnles  from  Irkutsk,  or  to  the 
island  of  Sakhalin.     The  convicts  condenmed  to  lon^  periods  or 
lo  Sakhalin  had  half  the  head  shaved,  as  shown  in  the  t^roup  pho- 
toi^raphed  on  j).  if)0,  and  a  number  of  the  worst  characters  were 
in  chains.      The  majority  of  the  prisoners  were  there  for  theft, 
and  rohberv  with  violence;  a  number  for  unnatural  offences,  and 
several,  in  solitary  continement,  for  usin.o-  foroed  passports,  or 
two,  for  instance,  who  had  exchani^ed  identities  and  passports — 
a  serious  offence  in  Russian  eyes.     Two  other  men   I  saw  sei)a- 
ratelv  contined  were  unidentified  {prisoners,   who  had  no  ])ass- 
ports,  and  refused  to  say  who  they  were,  or  where  they  came 
from,  the  natural  inference  l)ein<,^  that  they  had  somethini;  seri- 
ous to  hide.     The  cells  were  lar^e,  clean,  and  fairly  lii;ht,  and  all 
the  prisoners  were  dressed  in  loose  coats  and  trousers  of  ,i;rey 
felt,   with   apparently   such   underclothino;  as  they  hapi)ene(l   to 
possess.      Those   not   sei)arately   confmed   were   in    loni,^  rooms, 
lighted  by  a  row  of  small  windows  hi^h  in  the  walls,  entered  by 
one  heavv  door,  and  having-  down  the  middle  a  sort  of  enor- 
mous plank  l)ed,  sloping;-  from  the  middle  down  to  each  side. 
Upon  this  they  slei)t  in  two  rows  at  ni^ht,  and  sat  during   the 
(lav,  for  the  s})ace  between  the  end  of  the  boards  and  the  wall 
was  only  just  big  enough  to  hold  them  all  when  standing  u])  to 
receive  an  official  visit.     Four  sucli  wards  did  I  enter,  seeing  per- 
haps  six   hundred   ])risoners  of  all   ages,   from   youths   to    very 
old   men,   of   all   the   nationalities   which    Russia   contains,    and 
charged  with  all  the  crimes  in  the  code.      Every  one  of  these 
prisoners  was  awaiting  trial,  and  I  was  told  that  many  of  them 
would  be  tliere  as  long  as  two  years.     Certain  considerations, 
however,  may  modify  our  disapproval  somewhat.     In  the  first 
place,  these  men  are  assuredly  better  clothed  and  housed  and 


THE    PRISON    OF    IRKUTSK 


^59 


fed  than  they  would  otherwise  be— indeed,  at  the  approach  of 
winter,  a  large  number  deliberately  get  themselves  arrested.     In 
the  second  place,  the  proportion  of  criminals  in  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  Siberia  is  so  very  large,  and  the  police  are  so  few  in 
number,  and  so  lax,  that  the  chances  are  much  stronger  against 
an  innocent  man  being  arrested  than  in  more  civilised  regions. 
Thirdly,  it  was  impossible  to  pass  about  among  these  men,  look- 
ing carefully  into  their  faces,  and  not  to  feel  that  it  was  better  for 
Siberia  that  most  of  them  should  be  where  they  were.     When 
the  door  of  one  of  the  large  rooms  was  thrown  open  and  I  was 
invited  to  step  in  among  two  hundred  of  them,  I  confess  at  first 
I  hesitated.    There  were  only  four  of  us— the  governor,  the  head- 
warder,  the  doorkeeper  of  the  room,  and  myself,  with  nobody 
else  even  within  hail,  while  in  one  case  there  were  but  two  doors 
between  them  and  the  street,  and  an  old  man  keeping  watch. 
In  an  English  prison  those  men  would  have  been  outside  in  a 
couple  of  minutes.     Never  has  it  been  my  lot,  though  I  have 
visited  prisons,  civilised  and  uncivilised,  in  many  parts  of  the 
world,  to  see  human  nature  at  such  a  low  ebb,  and  the  faces 
of  these  men,  from  wild  beast  to  vacant  idiot,  haunted  me  for 
days.     Guilty  or  innocent  of  any  particular  crime,   they  could 
hardly  be  other,  with  few  exceptions,  than  a  curse  to  society. 
From'  this  point  of  view  Russian  criminology  has  a  task  unknown 
in  countries  where  civilisation  has  reached  a  higher  average  de- 

velopment. 

The  convicts,  curiously  enough— that  is,  men  condemned  to 
considerable  terms  of  hard  labour  before  being  set  free  as  exiles, 
forbidden  to  leave  the  district  to  which  they  are  assigned— were 
on  the  whole  of  a  rather  better  type,  although  they  were  disfig- 
ured by  having  half  of  the  head  shaved.  Each  man  had  a  rough 
parcel  of  his  personal  belongings,  and  they  were  all  strangely 
cheerful,  considering  their  destination.  Nothing,  however, 
strikes  an  English  visitor,  who  has  seen  the  rigid  military  dis- 
cipline of  our  own  prisons,  so  much  as  the  good  feeling,  not  to 


).jH|p>WLMWi*'^>»4»'ij< 


158 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


children  accompanying  their  mothers.  CM  tlicse  no  fewer  than 
621  were  awaitina-  trial,  i  ^8  were  condennied  for  definite  periods 
not  exceeding  three  years,  which  they  will  serve  in  this  prison, 
and  286  were  '*  in  transit,"  mostly  either  to  the  great  convict 
prison  of  Alexandrofsk,  forty-six  miles  from  Irkutsk,  or  to  the 
island  of  Sakhalin.  The  convicts  condemned  to  long  periods  or 
10  Sakhalin  had  half  the  head  shaved,  as  shown  in  the  grou])  pho- 
togra])he(l  on  p.  160,  and  a  number  of  the  worst  characters  were 
in  chains.  The  majority  of  the  prisoners  were  there  for  theft, 
and  rol)l)ery  with  violence;  a  number  for  unnatural  offences,  and 
several,  in  solitary  confinement,  for  using  forged  passports,  or 
two,  for  instance,  who  had  exchanged  identities  and  passports — 
a  serious  offence  in  Russian  eyes.  Two  other  men  I  saw  sepa- 
rately confmed  were  unidentified  prisoners,  who  had  no  pass- 
jKjrts,  and  refused  to  say  who  they  were,  or  where  they  came 
from,  the  natural  inference  being  that  they  had  something  seri- 
ous to  hide.  The  cells  were  large,  clean,  and  fairly  light,  and  all 
the  prisoners  were  dressed  in  loose  coats  and  trousers  of  grey 
felt,  with  apparently  such  underclothing  as  they  hapj)ened  to 
possess.  Those  not  separately  confined  were  in  long  rooms, 
lighted  by  a  row  of  small  windows  high  in  the  walls,  entered  by 
one  heavy  door,  and  having  down  the  middle  a  sort  of  enor- 
mous plank  bed,  sloping  from  the  middle  down  to  each  side. 
Upon  this  they  slept  in  two  rows  at  night,  and  sat  during  the 
day,  for  the  space  l^etween  the  end  of  the  boards  and  the  wall 
was  only  just  big  enougli  to  hold  them  all  when  standing  u])  to 
receive  an  official  visit.  Four  such  wards  did  1  enter,  seeing  per- 
haps six  hundred  prisoners  of  all  ages,  from  youths  to  very 
old  men,  of  all  the  nationalities  which  Russia  contains,  and 
charged  with  all  the  crimes  in  the  code.  Every  one  of  these 
prisoners  was  awaiting  trial,  and  I  was  told  that  many  of  them 
would  be  there  as  long  as  two  years.  Certain  considerations, 
however,  may  modify  our  disapproval  somewhat.  In  the  first 
place,  these  men  are  assuredly  better  clotlied  and  housed  and 


THE    PRISON    OF    IRKUTSK 


^59 


fed  than  they  would  otherwise  be — indeed,  at  the  approach  of 
winter,  a  large  number  deliberately  get  themselves  arrested.     In 
the  second  place,  the  proportion  of  criminals  in  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  Siberia  is  so  very  large,  and  the  police  are  so  few  in 
number,  and  so  lax,  that  the  chances  are  much  stronger  against 
an  innocent  man  being  arrested  than  in  more  civilised  regions. 
Thirdly,  it  was  impossible  to  pass  about  among  these  men,  look- 
ing carefully  into  their  faces,  and  not  to  feel  that  it  was  better  for 
Siberia  that  most  of  them  should  be  where  they  were.     When 
the  door  of  one  of  the  large  rooms  was  thrown  open  and  I  w^as 
invited  to  step  in  among  two  hundred  of  them,  I  confess  at  first 
I  hesitated.    There  were  only  four  of  us— the  governor,  the  head- 
warder,  the  doorkeeper  of  the  room,  and  myself,  with  nobody 
else  even  within  hail,  while  in  one  case  there  were  but  two  doors 
between  them  and  the  street,  and  an  old  man  keeping  watch. 
In  an  English  prison  those  men  would  have  been  outside  in  a 
couple  of  minutes.     Never  has  it  been  my  lot,  though  I  have 
visited  prisons,  civilised  and  uncivilised,  in  many  parts  of  the 
world,  to  see  human  nature  at  such  a  low  ebb,  and  the  faces 
of  these  men,  from  wild  beast  to  vacant  idiot,  haunted  me  for 
days.     Guilty  or  innocent  of  any  particular  crime,  they  could 
hardly  be  other,  with  few  exceptions,  than  a  curse  to  society. 
From  this  point  of  view  Russian  criminology  has  a  task  unknown 
in  countries  where  civilisation  has  reached  a  higher  average  de- 
velopment. 

The  convicts,  curiously  enough— that  is,  men  condemned  to 
considerable  terms  of  hard  labour  before  being  set  free  as  exiles, 
forbidden  to  leave  the  district  to  which  they  are  assigned— were 
on  the  whole  of  a  rather  better  type,  although  they  were  disfig- 
ured by  having  half  of  the  head  shaved.  Each  man  had  a  rough 
parcel  of  his  personal  belongings,  and  they  were  all  strangely 
cheerful,  considering  their  destination.  Nothing,  however, 
strikes  an  English  visitor,  who  has  seen  the  rigid  military  dis- 
cipline of  our  own  prisons,  so  much  as  the  good  feeling,  not  to 


-*  •  ♦  •• 


i6o 


ALL    IHK    RUSSL^S 


say  familiarity,  which  prevails  between  tlie  officials  and  the  pris- 
oners. The  lnspect()r-(  ieneral  of  the  Prison,  M.  Sipiai^in.  wlio 
accompanied  me,  seemed  to  rei^ard  his  chari^es  rather  a>  cliil- 
dren  than  as  criminals,  and  they  behaved  to  him  with  the  con- 
fidence, never  wantins;-  in  respect,  of  schoobboys  t<»\\ar(l  a 
master.  He  never  failed  to  remove  his  military  cap.  and  say 
"  Zdrasti!  "  (Good  health!)  when  he  entered  a  ward,  and  a  simnl- 


Inside  the  Prison,  Irkutsk. 

A  group  of  convicts  lo  be   "  Jistributed." 

taneotis  cry  returned  his  .i^reetino-.  As  we  walked  u])  and  down, 
man  after  man  stepped  up  to  the  inspector,  asked  him  (piestions 
about  themselves  or  their  sentences  without  the  least  trace  of 
fear  or  embarrassment,  and  even  took  him  literally  by  the  but- 
ton-hole and  turned  him  aside  from  us  when  they  wished  to  make 
some  private  remark  to  him.  One  man  £^oino^  to  Sakhalin  pro- 
duced a  paper  showing  that  he  had  a  small  sum  of  money  to  his 
credit  in  a  prison  in  Moscow,  and  the  particulars  were  noted 


THE    PRISON    OF    IRKUTSK 


i6i 


down  and  orders  given  that  this  was  to  be  sent  after  him.     An- 
other wished  the  doctor  to  examine  him  again  before  he  started 
Un-  Sakhalin;    the   Inspector  spoke  a  word  to  his  orderly,  and 
later  in  the  day  I  saw  this  man  sittmg  at  the  hospital  door  await- 
ing his  turn.     Those  who  think  that  everything  in  the  Russian 
prison  system  is  savagery  may  say  that  all  this  was  rehearsed  for 
my  benefit,  Init  1  am  not  a  child  in  such  matters,  and  1  say  that 
it'wa>   impossible   to  accomi)any   M.   Sipiagin  on   this  tour   of 
inspection  and  not  to  be  struck  by  the  entire  absence  of  terror- 
ism in  any   form.     The   Russian  convict  system  has  its  terrible 
side,  of  which  1  am  now  more  than  ever  aware,  but  there  are 
few  sign^  of  it  in  a  i)rison  like  that  of  Irkutsk.     To  find  this 
nowadavs  one  must  look  farther  north  and  east. 

There  wa>  no  i)olitical  prisoner  there  at  the  time;    at  least, 

I  wa.  a.>ured  that  this  was  the  case,  and  later  1  saw  the  ofikial 

report  for  tlic  day,  m  which  no  such  prisoner  figured.     I  saw  a 

numbc-i-  of  "  politicals  "  elsewhere  at  various  times,  but  they  were 

all  earnnig  a  good  livnig  a.  clerks  and  bookkeepers.     Of  course 

1   (lid   not  get  as  far  a>  the  terrible  little  town  of   Kolyni^k.  a 

thousand   ver.t.  north  of  Irkutsk,  where  the  worst  political  oi- 

fender^  are  exiled  to  a  living  death,     ihit  from  all  I  .aw  i  was 

not  Mirprised  to  learn  that  at  the  beginnmg  of  each  winter  an 

inlhix   of  minor  offenders  take>   place  into  prison,   where   they 

get  wanu  ciuarters,  plenty  of  wholesome  food,  and  no  work.     And 

as  1  have  said.  1  saw  clearly  that  the  Russian  authorities  have  to 

deal  with  a  stratum  of  population  far  l)elow  any  that  exists  with 

us— a  brutish,  hopeless,  irreclaimable  mass  of  human  animals. 

A  few  figures  will  show  to  what  an  extent  the  human  refuse 
of  European  Russia  has  been  emptied  into  Siberia.  lu  1898— 
the  latest  statistics  available— 7,906  men  and  314  ^vo^len  were 
exiled  to  Siberia.  These  were  voluntarily  followed  into  exile 
by  1,683  men  and  3.275  women.  The  first-named  exiles  were 
divided  into  cla..es  as  follows;  1,281  men  and  68  women  con- 
demned to  hard  labour;    128  men  and  3  women  sentenced  to 


l62 


ALL    IHI.    RUSSIAS 


*  .' 


banishment;  52  men  and  158  women  simply  depiM-ted;  and  3,848 
men  and  3  women,  peasants  whom  their  vilhige  connnnnes  had 
refused  to  receive  l)ack  after  condenmation  and  punishment  for 
various  offences.  The  convict  headcjuarters  is  the  island  of  Sak- 
halin, in  the  China  Sea,  which  very  few  foreij;ners  have  ever  vis- 
ited. It  is  crowded  now  and  can  take  no  more,  and  its  condition 
is  said  by  Russians  themselves  to  l)e  very  bad.  Indeed  its  pris- 
ons, which  will  not  hold  half  the  convicts,  are  admitted  in  the 
of^cial    report    itself    to    be    "  dans    un    etat    de    vetuste    tres 


avancee." 


It  is  evident  to  anybody  who  stuches  the  state  of  Sil)eria 
that  this  wonderful  country  can  never  enjoy  its  due  develop- 
ment until  the  whole  system  of  convict  transportation  is  done 
away  with.  Not  a  week  passes  without  a  murder  in  every  Si- 
berian town.  Two  emigrants  had  l)een  killed  in  the  Siberian  train 
shortly  before  my  visit.  The  head  of  one  force  of  free  labourers 
upon  railway  works  was  in  Siberia  for  an  outrage  upon  a  child; 
the  boss  of  another  was  a  murderer.  The  porter  at  my  hotel 
in  Irkutsk  was  a  murderer  from  the  Caucasus.  Theoretically, 
when  bad  characters  are  deported  they  are  forbidden  to  leave 
the  district  to  which  they  are  assigned;  practically,  they  leave 
as  soon  as  it  suits  them,  and  their  first  object  is  to  kill  some 
peasant  for  his  clothes  and  passport.  Indeed,  if  they  did  not 
move  away  they  w^ould  starve,  for  in  many  cases  the  authorities 
simply  turn  them  out  and  leave  them  to  their  fate.*    The  politi- 

*  "  De  fait,  la  situation  du  forQat  etait,  sous  maints  rapports,  mieux  assurce  que 
celle  des  condamnesa  la  deportation  simple  ou  h.  la  relegation.  Tandis  que  le  premier, 
en  etant  astreint  au  travail,  avait  souvent  son  propre  menage,  certains  deportes,  aban- 
donnes  a  la  merci  du  sort,  dans  un  pays  presque  inhabite,  avaient  de  la  peine  a 
trouver  de  I'occupation  pour  assurer  leur  existence.  On  conyoit  par  consequent  I'im- 
portance  de  la  recente  loi  qui  a  supprime  la  deportation,  et  avec  elle  ce  genre  special 
de  proletariat  vagabond.  La  prison  contemporaine  n'est  certainement  pas  I'ideal  du 
regime  penitentiaire ;  mais  son  effet  sera  toujours  infiniment  moins  nuisible  que  celui 
du  vagaVjondage  pour  ainsi  dire  force  que  vient  de  supprimer  la  loi  susmentionnee." 
— Report  of  the  Central  Prison  Administration,  rej)roduced  in  the  Gazette  de  St. 
P^tersbourg,  March  i8,  1901. 


THE    PRISON    OF    IRKUTSK 


163 


cal  exiles  have  made  Siberia  what  it  is,  for  they  have  been  among 
the  most  educated  and  energetic  classes  in  Russia;  but  the  crim- 
inal exiles  are  a  fatal  bar  to  further  progress.  Siberia  will  there- 
fore eagerly  welcome  the  good  news  that  the  commission  ap- 
'  pointed  by  the  Tsar  to  consider  the  whole  question  of  criminal 
transportation  has  just  reported  against  the  Siberian  system,  and 
recommended  the  construction  of  great  convict  prisons  in  Russia. 
The  cost  of  these  to  the  State  will  be  enormously  greater  than 
that  of  criminal  Siberia,  and  assuredly  the  lot  of  the  convict  will 
henceforth  be  harder,  but  the  decision  was  inevitable  if  one  of 
the  richest  parts  of  the  Tsar's  dominions  is  to  attain  its  proper 
prosperity. 


ii,1 


m0    -i"iiii'i||piiiiiiii'"'i«i*'i 


THE  GREAT 
WATER-WAY 


CHAPTER    XI 
« LITTLE    MOTHER    VOLGA" 

RUSSIA  has  two  great  Asiatic  railways,  each  destined  to 
play  a  vast  part  in  her  commercial  and  political  future. 
One  of  them  runs,  speaking  roughly,  from  St.  Petersburg  to 
China,  the  other  from  the  Black  Sea  (by  the  Caucasus  and  the 
Caspian)  to  India.  The  commercial  objects  of  the  two  are  dif- 
ferent, but  a  political  aim  they  have  in  common:  together  with 
other  lines  shortly  to  be  built  they  form  part  of  the  net  which 
Russia  is  throwing  over  Asia.  Having  seen  the  Great  Siberian 
Railway,  as  described  in  previous  chapters,  my  next  o])ject  was 
the  Trans-Caspian  Railway,  and  the  heart  of  Asia  to  which  it 
goes.  But  Russia  is  a  country  of  magnificent  distances,  and 
practically  the  whole  of  it  separated  me,  in  the  north  of  Europe, 
from  Asia  Minor,  in  the  south,  with  a  great  mountain  chain, 
crossed  by  no  railway,  intervening.  To  make  the  whole  jour- 
ney by  rail  would  have  been  long,  dreary  and  roundabout,  where- 
as if  I  could  get  down  the  Volga,  it  would  be  not  only  a  com- 
fortable but  a  very  interesting  one.  But  snow  had  begun  to 
fall  in  Siberia,  and  the  freezing  of  the  Volga  was  close  at  hand. 
Fortune,  however,  was  kind,  for  on  the  platform  at  Samara  I 
learned  that  the  last  boat  of  the  season  was  to  leave  the  same 
night.  The  traveller  from  Western  Europe  reaches  the  Cau- 
casus most  pleasantly  by  steamer  from  Constantinople  to  luitum, 
or  if  he  is  already  in  Russia,  by  steamer  from  Odessa.  It  is  only 
when  you  are  coming  from  Siberia  that  your  best  route  is  down 
the  Volga  to  Tsaritsin,  and  thence  by  rail  to  Vladikavkaz. 

Samara  had  both  plague  and  famine  for  its  neighbours  of  late, 

164 


"LITTLE    MOTHER    VOLGA" 


165 


but  there  were  no  signs  of  either.  It  is  a  typical  Russian  pro- 
vincial town,  defying  description.  Its  houses  range  from  wooden 
hovels  to  well-built,  handsome  structures,  public  offices  and  busi- 
ness premises.  Its  principal  sight  is  of  course  a  statue  of  a  Tsar. 
Its  best  streets  are  paved  and  the  others  are  a  welter  of  mud. 
Its  chief  industry  and  the  source  of  its  prosperity— though  this 
has  suffered  from  the  succession  of  bad  harvests  in  the  Volga 
provinces,  and  has  still,  I  fear,  to  suiter  more— could  be  learned 
from  a  glance  round  the  store  of  ^lessrs.  Koenitzer  &  Co., 
where  every  kind  of  agricultural  tool  and  machine  was  displayed. 
Incidentally  I  have  to  thank  this  most  courteous  German  firm 
for  very  timely  assistance,  and  a  word  about  this  may  be  of  use 
to  future  travellers  in  provincial  Russia. 

My  letters  had  been  addressed  to  the  Samara  branch  of  the 
Volga-Kama  Bank,  and  I  had  a  personal  letter  of  introduction 
to  them  from  a  Moscow  banker,  besides  my  official  letter  of 
recommendation  from  the  Minister  of  Finance  himself.     Under 
these  circumstances,  when  I  approached  the  manager  of  the  bank 
with  London  and  Westminster  circular  notes,  I  imagined  that  cash 
would  be  forthcoming.     It  was  a  vain  hope.     The  manager  of 
the  principal  bank  of  this  important  town  of  100,000  people,  sit- 
uated at  the  focus  of  traffic  where  the  greatest  railway  in  Russia 
crosses  the  greatest  river,  looked  at  my  financial  documents  with 
amiable  curiosity,  as  if  they  had  been  a  Papal  Bull  or  a  portrait 
of  the  Emperor  of  China.    As  for  advancing  money  upon  such 
things,  the  very  idea  raised  obvious  and  painful  suspicions  in 
his  mind.     After  long  discussion  I  inquired  if  he  could  suggest 
any  means  whereby  the  solvency  of  the  London  and  W^estminster 
Bank  could  be  made  manifest  in  Samara.     He  thought  that  if 
he  telegraphed   to   Moscow,   and    Moscow   telegraphed   to   St. 
Petersburg,  and  St.  Petersburg  telegraphed  to  London,  the  deed 
might  ultimately  be  done.     How  long  would  this  take?     Per- 
haps a  week.     I  left,  with  the  intention  of  seeking  the  nearest 
pawnshop,  when  the  firm  of  Koenitzer  &  Co.  arose  like  a  star 


.  r" v»*»*v^"**w  fcMWW  Vfs 


r--JS(^>.„^-S>«-'* 


ri'i^lE^S'*"*'*'*  ■■°*V^'"^^ 


■; 


I 


i66 


ALL    IHK    RUSSLAS 


in  my  financial  night,  and,  having  the  usual  knowledge  of  the 
methods  of  credit  and  exchange  common  to  civilised  countries, 
was  kind  enough  to  give  me  in  two  minutes  all  the  money  I 
wanted.  Let  this  be  the  record  of  my  thanks,  and  a  warning 
to  other  travellers  in  provincial  Russian  towns  where  the  con- 
stellation of  Koenitzer  may  not  be  in  the  ascendant,  to  carry 
their  cash  in  a  belt,  as  one  does  in  Korea,  for  instance. 

At  the  foot  of  a  steep  hill,  at  the  end  of  a  broad  street,  the 
great  grey  Volga  flows  past  Samara.     A  paddle-steamer,  look- 


nv^^*i,«i»(S><iS.-*V''-.      --■■  :  ■■r->*!rt:ttw»-*ft;»-,,  . 


The  Volga. 


ing  like  a  row  of  two-storey  houses,  lay  at  a  wharf  piled  high 
with  goods— sacks  of  corn  and  flour,  thousands  of  wooden  cases, 
cart-wdieels,  the  kind  of  dug-out  canoes  in  which  linen  is  washed 
in  Russia,  in  fact,  a  miscellaneous  mountain  of  merchandise,  all 
asking  urgently  to  be  taken  south  before  the  frost  blocked  the 
long  waterway.  And  a  shouting,  pushing,  perspiring  mass  of 
peasant  humanity,  with  its  belongings,  personal  and  professional, 
in  innumerable  great  bundles.  We  were  off  before  the  hour 
struck,  and  an  excellent  meal  and  a  large  and  verminous  cabin 


"LITTLE    MOTHER   VOLGA" 


167 


awaited  me  upon  the  bosom  of  what  geographers  know  as  the 
biggest  river  in  l£uroi)e,  and  what  Russians  attectionately  call 

''  little  Mother  Volga." 

This  gigantic  waterway,  2,300  miles  long,  over  eleven  miles 
wide  in  the  spring  at  Nijni  Novgorod,  draining  a  country  three 
times  the  size  of  France,  with  a  delta  of  seventy-two  miles,  is  a 
disappointment  as  regards  scenery.  The  Rhine,  the  Hudson, 
the  Yang-tsze  and  the  Thames  all  surpass  it  in  their  different 


A  Timber  Barge  on  the  Volga. 

aspects.  Its  left  bank  is  an  unbroken  fertile  plain,  edged  with 
willows  and  dwarf  oaks,  and  when  the  sandbanks,  bordered  with 
a  green  strip,  come  down  to  the  river,  one  could  think  one's  self 
on^the  Nile.  The  right  bank  is  an  uninterrupted  cliff,  worn  steep 
by  the  river  in  geologic  time.  Every  now  and  then,  when  its 
angle  is  acuter,  a  little  village  chngs  to  it,  the  mud-coloured 
houses  rising  one  above  another  on  the  mud-coloured  slope. 
The  important  town  of  Saratof  extends  for  a  mile  or  more,  and 
very  quaint  is  the  view  of  it  from  the  steamer.     Its  centre  is  a 


5*.^         -"-'^■k'  'ffc-  .*■  ■ 


H 


i68 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^S 


mass,  of  red-brick  buildings,  and  on  each  flank  is  a  long  suburb 
of  wooden  houses,  tailing  out  at  last  to  a  fringe  of  poverty.  High 
white  churches  with  green  roofs  are  dotted  over  the  city,  and 
all  the  wide  main  streets  fall  precipitously  to  the  water's  edge 
at  a  right  angle,  looking  at  a  distance  more  like  streams  than 

roads. 

The  river  is  covered  with  busy  life.  Tugs  are  slowly  hauling 
whole  fleets  of  barges  upstream,  some  loaded  high  above  the 
water,  some  flat-decked  and  black— these  are  filled  with  petro- 
leum from  Baku.  Most  picturesciue  are  the  immense  barges  of 
timber  drifting  down  from  the  north;  these  are  as  big  and  as 
high  as  a  house,  and  on  the  top  of  them  are  the  solidly  built 
cabins  in  which  their  crews  live  during  the  long  ([uiet  voy- 
age. Every  few  hours  we  meet  another  steamer  like  ourselves, 
its   one   scarlet    boat   slung  at   a   slant,   nose   upwards,   at  the 

stern. 

Near  Saratof  we  made  fast  to  a  huge  oil  barge,  and  I  think 
this  was  the  most  interesting  incident  of  the  Volga.  No  fuel 
but  oil  is  used  upon  the  river  or  near  it,  and  the  consumption 
is  increasing  so  fast  that,  although  the  supply  is  increasing  also, 
the  price  is  steadily  rising.  It  is  not,  of  course,  petroleum  or 
kerosene  as  we  know  it,  but  the  heavy  residue  left  after  these  light 
oils  are  refined.  The  residue,  for  its  fuel  value,  is  worth  more 
than  the  illuminating  oils,  and  indeed  I  was  told  that  the  whole 
industry  exists  practically  to  produce  this  residue.  As  soon  as 
we  were  made  fast,  a  long  wooden  sluice  was  run  aboard,  one 
end  of  which  was  under  the  canvas  pipe  leading  from  a  huge 
tank  on  the  deck  of  the  barge,  and  the  other  end  over  the  open- 
ing of  our  own  oil  cisterns  amidships.  The  word  was  given, 
and  instantly  a  thick,  dark  green,  almost  inodorous  stream  rushed 
down  the  sluice.  In  less  than  an  hour  we  had  taken  on  board 
some  forty  tons,  enough  for  four  days  and  nights  of  consecutive 

steaming. 

When  we  cast  off  again  I  went  down  to  the  stokehole  to 


"LITTLE    MOTHER   VOLGA 


)» 


169 


see  what  became  of  the  oil.     There  were  four  large  cylindrical 
boilers,  each  with  apparently  an  ordinary  firebox  but  without 
any  grate-bars.     In  each  furnace  door  was  an  opening  a  few 
inches  wide,  and  two  pipes,  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter, 
descended  from  the  roof  and  coalescing  in  a  joint  with  two  taps, 
like  that  which  unites  the  oxygen  and  hydrogen  cylinders  of 
a  magic  lantern,  projected  a  little  way  into  the  firebox.     The 
principle  is  precisely  that  of  the  familiar  ozoniser  or  scent-spray, 
the  oil  coming  into  contact  with  a  jet  of  steam  and  being  driven 
into  the  furnace  in  the  shape  of  a  blast  of  petroleum  vapour, 
which  burns  fiercely  with  a  deafening  roar.    The  heat  is  intense, 
the  inside  of  the  furnace  being  red-hot  all  round,  but  it  is  aston- 
ishing to  see  a  perfectly  empty  firebox,  with  all  the  boiler-tubes 
in  full  sight,  and  not  a  cinder  nor  a  trace  of  smoke.    The  stoke- 
hole is  as  clean  as  any  other  part  of  the  vessel,  and  the  two 
stokers  stand  quietly,  each  before  a  pair  of  boilers,  holding  a  little 
wooden  mallet  in  his  hand.     This  is  to  tap  the  steam  and  oil 
cocks,  as  they  are  too  hot  to  touch.     A  few  taps,  and  one  of 
the  boiler  fires  is  extinguished.     A  few  more  taps  and  a  torch 
thrust  for  a  second  through  the  opening  and  it  is  alight  again. 
Half  a  dozen  taps  and  one  furnace  is  burning  with  a  blaz^  .    ^ 
a  heat  and  a  roar  positively  alarming.     The  contrast  between 
this  simplicity  and  cleanliness  and  the  banging,  the  dirt,  the  sweat 
and   the  cinder-shifting  of  an  ordinary  stokehole  is  extraordi- 
nary.   When  I  went  on  deck  there  was  not  even  a  suggestion  of 
smoke  from  the  one  broad  low  funnel,  and  the  captain  told  me 
that  he  could  get  up  steam  from  cold  water  in  a  Httle  over  half 

an  hour. 

The  combination  of  perfect  river  transport,  connected  by 
canals  with  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  and  the  abundance  of 
such  a  convenient  and  cheap  fuel,  is  obviously  destined  to  pro- 
mote manufactures  of  all  kinds  in  the  Volga  towns.  At  Saratof 
it  was  easy  to  see  that  a  number  of  the  factories  were  new,  while 
at  Tsaritsin  a  French  company  is  setting  up  ironworks  on  a 


i/'^ 


'  I 


r 
I 


y 


It 


.! 


I  70 


ALL   THK    RUSSLA.S 


great  scale.    It  is  safe  to  prophesy  that  many  other  similar  enter- 
prises will  take  shape  hereabouts  in  years  to  come.* 

At  Tsaritsin  I  left  the  steamer  after  three  days  on  hoar<l. 
and  next  day  took  train  for  Vladikavkaz,  another  three  days' 
travel.  It  is  a  long  and  monotonous  railway  journey  across  a 
plain  with  no  elevation  on  it  bigger  than  your  hat,  green  in  spring 
and  coming  gradually  under  cultivation — though  you  never  cease 
to  wonder  how  the  little  scattered  villages  can  hold  inhabitants 
enough  to  till  it — and  brown  as  a  nut  after  the  summer  heats. 
After  a  time  you  cease  even  to  look  out  of  the  carriage-window, 
and  doze  or  read  through  the  long  hours,  while  the  train  itself 
seems  to  go  to  sleep,  so  slowly  does  it  move. 

Distances  look  insignificant  upon  the  small  scale  map  of  Rus- 
sia, but,  in  fact,  they  are  very  great,  and  nearly  a  week  had 
elapsed  since  I  left  the  railway  in  the  north,  on  my  return  from 
Siberia,  before  1  came  in  sight  of  the  great  range.  But  at  last 
I  looked  up  and  saw  suddenly  a  startling  ])rospect — nothing 
less  than  an  army  of  dazzling  snow-white  mountains,  marching, 
as  it  were,  in  close  order  over  the  mud-coloured  plain.  A  few- 
hours  later  we  were  in  Madikavkaz,  whose  name  means  the  Mas- 
tery of  the  Caucasus,  just  as  Vladivostok  means  the  Mastery  of 
the  East,  though,  like  Gordon's  "  ever-victorious  army,"  such 
appellations  convey  an  aspiration  rather  than  a  description. 
Here  the  plain  and  the  monotony  and  the  West  come  to  an  end, 
and  the  mountains  and  the  wonderland  and  the  East  l)egin. 

Like  all  such  Russian  towns  it  has  a  cosmopolitan  centre  of 

*  This  year  the  navigation  of  the  Volga  lias  been  attended  with  very  great  ditVi- 
culty,  arising  partly  from  the  failure  of  the  light-buoys,  resulting  in  many  barges  run- 
ning aground  and  blocking  the  channel,  and  more  from  an  extrac^rdinary  lovvne^s  ot 
water.  It  is  said  that  no  less  than  15,000,000  pouds  of  petroleum  and  petroleum 
residue  are  stranded  in  barges  between  Astrakhan  and  Saratof,  while  40,000,000 
pouds  are  lying  at  Astrakhan,  and  will  probably  have  to  be  stored  there  during  the 
winter.  The  lack  of  this  enormous  quantity  of  material  for  light  and  fuel  will 
evidently  cause  the  most  serious  embarrassment.  The  dredging  of  a  deep  navigable 
channel  in  the  Volga  is  a  matter  which  demands  the  immediate  efforts  of  the  govern- 
ment on  a  much  larger  scale  than  that  at  present  pursued.  Probably  the  authorities 
would  welcome  foreign  cooperation  in  this  great  undertaking. 


i'.*--vsia4VNa...'&>4'«-'^  H'-'- 


"LITTLE    MOTHER   VOLGA '^ 


171 


a  more  or  less  pretentious  kind — the  hotel,  and  an  institution 
or  two,  any  of  which  buildings  might  be  found  enclosing  the 
smug  bourgeoisie  of  the  French  provinces,  or  persuading  Ferdi- 
nand of  Bulgaria  that  he  was  still  in  his  Austrian  hoine.  After 
this  kernel,  the  streets  gain  in  dirt,  in  colour,  in  that  frank  in- 
decency of  procedure  which  marks  Oriental  life,  and  the  first 
houses  you  pass  as  you  enter  the  town,  and  the  last  as  you  leave 
it,  are  square,  crumbling  wooden  caves  with  all  the  messy  food- 
products  or  the  garish  cottons  hanging  in  them  that  characterise 
the  customs  of  Eastern  peoples. 

It  is  a  cold  and  bright  October  day,  and  the  great  blue  moun- 
tains that  appear  at  every  southern  street-end  of  Vladikavkaz 
are  powdered  with  snow.  I  have  not  seen  mountains  trust  thein- 
selves  so  near  a  plain  before.  They  seem  a  company  of  nol)le 
travellers,  these  huge  peaks,  always  at  the  same  point  of  arrival, 
walking  into  the  town  and  toward  the  plain.  The  snow  upon 
them  is  not  more  than  the  generous  sugaring  upon  a  birthday- 
cake,  and  their  deep  fissures  keep  an  indigo  gloom.  They  dis- 
dain foot-hills  and  approaches  and  slopes  and  shoulders,  and 
only  a  green  grass  ridge  seeded  thickly  with  sheep,  and  a 
wooded  hill  or  two,  russet  and  orange  at  this  autumn  moment, 
lie  between  them  and  the  steppe.  My  road  leads  over  them, 
8,000  feet  high,  by  the  most  famous  mountain-highway  of  the 
world. 


.,../*■■     -t^.  '-^    .„..*„-, ,,-..i„ -,-.  •-     fk  -  "/•>■  -^  #-*■*■""*  "^  ^'*-^  "^"^ 


)' 


li 


THE   CAUCASUS 


CHAPTER    XII 
THE    FROSTY    CAUCASUS 

FROM  the  Oxus  to  the  Arctic  Circle,  and  from  Kars  to 
Kamchatka,  the  Tsar  rules  many  strange  peoples  and 
countries,  but  the  Caucasus  is  strani^cst  of  all.  Indeed,  anyone 
who  averred  that  the  Caucasus  is  the  most  interesting  land  of 
the  world  would  be  able  to  back  his  opinion  with  good  reasons. 
The  range  is  a  wall  across  the  narrow  isthmus  which  joins  luirope 
and  Asia,  and  the  Gorge  of  Dariel  is  the  door  in  this  wall  through 
wliich  ha^•e  come  almost  all  the  migrating  peoples  l)etween  East 
and  West  since  men  be^an  to  move  at  all.  iM'om  manv  of  these 
migrations  stragglers  remained,  some  in  one  valley,  some  in  an- 
other, and  their  new  homes  lent  tliem>cl\es  ^o  well  to  defence 
against  all  after-comers  that  the  original  settlers  were  al)le  to 
increase  and  multi|)ly  and  keep  their  race  intact.  1  lence  the  Cau- 
casus contains  to-day  the  direct  and  not  greatly  changed  de- 
scendants of  peoples  otherwise  lost  in  the  mists  of  remote  an- 
tiquity. It  is,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Douglas  h^reshheld,  the  first 
explorer  and  climber  of  the  mountain>,  "  an  ethnological  museum 
where  the  invaders  of  Europe,  as  they  travelled  westward  to  be 
manufactured  into  nations,  left  behind  samples  of  themselves  in 
their  raw  condition."  The  Germans,  destroyers  of  sacred  and 
profane  legend,  do  not  accept  this  theory,  and  Professor  Virchow 
declares  that  it  is  disproved  by  the  fact  that  the  Caucasus  could 
not  have  been  a  highway  when  the  ice-fields  came  down  lower 
than  they  do  now,  and  that  the  languages  of  the  Caucasus  are 
not  related  to  languages  elsewhere,  as  would  have  been  the  case 
if  the  speakers  of  them  were  remnants  of  greater  nations  that 


172 


I' 


■*  'i';i-.-''^-v  ■■*^-*  *- 


THE    FROSTY    CAUCASUS 


173 


had  passed  on.  But  the  theory  of  human  samples  is  so  attrac- 
tive, and  the  races  of  the  Caucasus  are  so  original  and  peculiar, 
that  for  my  part  I  share  on  this  occasion  the  wilhngness  of  the 
American  humorist  to  "  know  some  things  that  are  not  so."  At 
least  the  sceptical  Germans  may  leave  us  the  classic  belief  that 
Kasbek  was  the  scene  of  the  martyrdom  of  Prometheus,   and 

the     Christian     legend     -- : -7- - 

that     Abraham's    tent 

and  Christ's  cradle  are  ^ 

still  to  be  found  hidden 

on     its     slopes.       The 

Caucasus,  in  fact,  was 

destined   by  nature   to 

be  the  home  of  myth, 

for  in  ancient  times  it 

was  the  barrier  beyond 

which    no    man    cottld 

go,   and   therefore   the 

gate  of  the  land  which 

man     populated     with 

the     ofT^|>ring    of    his 

dreams — the  land  "  of 

Gog    and    Magog,    of 

gold-guarding  Griffms, 

one-eyed  Arimaspians, 

and  Amazons — of  all  the  fabulous  creatures  which  pass  slowly 

out  of  the  atlases  of  the  learned  into  the  picture-books  of  the 

nurserv." 

History  is  so  romantic,  however,  in  the  Caucasus,  that  myth 
can  be  dispensed  with.  It  tells  us  how  Alexander  the  Great 
conquered  Georgia;  how  the  legions  of  Pompey,  and,  long  after- 
ward, those  of  Justinian,  fought  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dariel  Pass, 
but  that  neither  soldier  nor  merchant  ever  passed  up  from  the 
south,  while  the  Scythian  barbarians  to  the  north  were  equally 


"AuJ*,*"''  V 


,-■  / 


y?7^/77^f:!^ 


Caucasian  Types— Tatars. 


r 


UBirarr  irniiniii 


h 


f 


I 


.f^ 


k<!) 


■! 


174 


AiJ.   rni;  rlssias 


unable  to  push  their  way  down.  The  histor\-  of  the  people  who 
held  the  I^ass  begins  in  the  third  century  B.C.,  with  King  Phar- 
navaz,  and  goes  on,  in  an  unbroken  and  often  bloody  story,  down 
1,300  years  till  the  swords  of  the  Crusaders  had  so  weakened 
the  infidel  hordes  that  King  David  II.  (1089),  whose  descent 
from  the  Psalmist  is  commemorated  by  the  harp  and  the  sling 
in  the  arms  of  Georgia,  drove  out  the  Turks  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  order  and  civilisation  upon  which,  a  hundred  years  later, 
Queen  Tamara  of  immortal  memory  built  up  the  Augtistan  age 
of  her  countrv.  If  half  that  is  told  of  this  ladv  be  true,  she  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  women  thai  ever  hlled  a  tlirone  or 
broke  a  heart.  So  l)eautiful  that  Shahs  and  Sultans  competed 
for  her  hand;  so  gifted  with  poesy  that  she  celel)rated  her  glori- 
ous victories  in  e\er-mcmorable  \ersc;  so  humble  that  slie  earned 
her  own  living  everv  day;  so  ])inus  thai  slic  set  aside  lor  the 
Vit"gin  a  portion  of  all  her  spoils  of  war;  so  l)ra\e  that  she  de- 
lied  a  rV^rsiaii  threat.  Iiacked  by  800,000  \\."inioi\s,  sin-  -pi'cad  the 
fame  and  the  fear  of  Georgia  tlirougli  all  the  accessible  world. 
But  tlie  ilowers  had  not  bloomed  often  on  her  gra\'e  ere  that  iii- 
vincible  scourge  of  Asia,  Genghiz  Khan,  came  to  Georgia,  and 
her  son  went  down  Isefore  his  \  ictory-glutted  Mongol-,  wliik- 
her  (latighter's  l)eauty,  like  her  own  bef(M"e,  brcaiglit  ra/iectcd 
suitors  seeking  re\'enge  at  llic  lica*!  t-i  ilinr  arnue-.  Georgia 
l'>ecanK'  the  cockfiit  wlicrt-  the  ri\ai  M«  ^liarnrncdan  scct^  ui  i'er^ia 
and  Turkey  fought  'Ui  iheir  everlastmg  quarrel;  n  was  divided 
by  its  own  rulers,  and  for  nian\-  a  gencraihui  its  story  is  of  ])il- 
lage  and  poison  and  murder  an.<!  tlie  putting  out  nf  eyes.  Then 
eariie  irakli  \\\c  ^  ireal.  thi*  t,-.  iiuomp^  )rar\  ..!  loa/di/ru-k  liu,-  Great, 
who  said  of  him.  *'  Moi  01  l:ifn>['c,  ct  cji  .^Isic  /7;rr7'/a'/,^7r  I Icnulc, 
mi  (Jc  (jcorgic.^^  *  b'itiallw  wT.e.-ii  <  icor^ia  was  ludples-  ;ii  ilu;  f^et 
of  I'ersia,  came  Rn-sja.  n<nninall\-  niistrc^b  uf  Georgia  ni  i8ui. 
She  had  to  defeat  both  Per-ia  and  Turkey  ])efore  her  concjiiest 
was  consolidated,  and  to  .^iij>pres>  man\   a  rhsuig  of  her  new   .siib- 

*  \\';ir«!rop.  * 


THE    FROSTY    CAUCASUS 


17s 


jects.  The  latest  of  these  was  the  revolution  led  by  the  prophet- 
patriot  Shamyl,  wdio  raised  the  entire  Caucasus  against  her  and 
held  her  whole  might  at  bay  for  sixteen  years,  destroying  sev- 
eral Russian  armies,  until  he  was  hopelessly  surrounded  in  the 
highland  fastness  of  Gunib  in  1859  and  surrendered.  In  the  pub- 
lic ixallerv  at  Tiilis 

there     is     a     huge      1       ;<;::^  ,  _    > 

])ainling  represent- 
ini"-  Shamvl  with 
head  thrown  back 
and  scarlet  beard, 
brought  before  the 
Russian  connnan- 
der,  seated  under  a 
tree  amid  his  stafT. 
As  1  Ic^oked  at  it  a 
Georgian  peasant, 
who  of  course 
cotild  not  read  the 
inscription  below, 
timidh-  approached 
me  audi  asked.  "If 
yon  please,  is  thai 
Shamyl?"  "It 
is,"  I  replied,  and 
his  deep,  long- 
drawn  ''Ah" 
shower]  how  poig- 
naiit  tlie  niem(.r\- 
of  ihib  lo^i  leader  is  yet.  And  wlien  1  left  tlie  gallerv  half  an 
hour  later  he  v;as  ^till  gazing  upon  t1ie  man  witli  whose  fail 
all  the  liopes  of  hi.s  people,  witli  ilieir  history  of  2,000  years, 
fell   thially  too. 

But  the  interest  of  the  Caucasus  is  by  no  means  confined  to 


Caucasian  Tx-pes  — a    lekkin  Family. 


I 


V. 


■ -l'  i^Vi-.-iv'-tj-i^.-j.'  *"-■-•■-''*..'■  ■'^.mfta 


•mmm 


Ill 


,  'i 


176 


ALL     J  I ii:    RLSSL^^S 


its  romantic  history,  nor  even  to  its  ethnol(\i;-ical  variety  also— 
its  once  g'allant  Georgians,  who  so  long  chanipioneci  the  Ooss 
against  the  Crescent,  its  wild  Le>ghian  highlanders  of  Daghe:^- 
tan,  its  savage  Suanetians.  bnt  laieh'  tamed,  its  Ossets,  the  arm- 
makers,  '*  gentlemen  of  the  monntains,"  its  Ahkhasians,  who 
miirrated  to  Tnrkcv  en  iiuissc  rather  than  remain  nnder  Ivns>ian 
rule,  its  vain  and  handsome  Circa.^sian>,  its  laz\'  Mingrelians  of 
the  fever-haunted  coast,  and  all  the  other  races  whose  names  sug- 
gest a  philologist's  nightmare — Imerian,  Radian.  Clurian,  Lech- 
gum,  Laz,  Pshav,  Khexsnr.  I  hych.  Shapsnch,  I)>higet,  Ingush, 
Galgai,  Kist,  Tush,  Karahulak,  Kazi-KumykshI  lt.>  mountain 
scenery  is  unparaheled  for  grandeur  except  1)\-  the  llimala\a?, 
and  offers  man\'  a  \irgin  peak  to  the  adxenturous  Alpinist.  The 
sportsman  may  tind  ibex  and  stag  and  hoar  and  wild  bull,  and 
game-birds  to  satiet}-,  for,  in  contra>t  with  other  places,  game 
is  l)ecoming  more  abundant  because  of  the  high  price  of  licences 
— so  af)un(lant,  indeed,  that  according  to  the  'litli^  Lisli'lc,  bcar> 
and  wolves  rob  the  she|)hcrd  brforc  his  cvc^,  and  wild  boar-  cnme 
to  tlie  fields  in  droves,  it  l-  a  boiaii!.-i'>  paradi-c:  between  tiie 
arid  plain  ansl  the  --Uiiw-  i-^  a  Ik/iI  where  men  on  lu)r>ebacl\  can 
pla\-  at  hideand  -eek  amid  the  il-iwer^.  '"  -ur\a\-al-  « •[  the  i^iant 
iiura  of  pa-t  ai;eb."  li  cuiitains  the  other  great  oibiields  of  the 
worl  1.  aiai  it-  mineral  wealth,  already  great,  only  awaits  dc- 
velopineiu  \'>  astoni-!i  an  age  little  apt  to  enthusiasm  over  tiie 
trca-nrc-  n  drag"<  from  tlieu-  hidini;pbice<  m  the  earth.  iMiially. 
tx>  the  student  a  politics  its  ver\  atnni-phere  reeks  with  interest, 
5Uice  5ome  da\'  tne  vast  armies  oi  Russia  will  puur  through  il 
again  to  another  death-grip  with  the  Turk — the  great  fortress 
of  Kars  is  fortified  only  on  the  south  side — and  who  knows  what 
scenes  it  may  witness  if  Britain  and  Russia  draw  the  sword,  and 
tlu  masses  of  Moscovy  march  singing  across  it,  to  tiic  Caspian, 
tc^  hnfl   theif  L:;ra\'e-  on  ihe  f)ank>  oi  tiie   Indn-?^ 

\At    till-   litiie   bnni.    m    -jiite   "f  it-   -nrpa--ini:  intore-f    from 
every   point    of   \iew,    remains  comparatncel)    unknown.      it    can 


THE    FROSTY    CAUCASUS 


177 


be  reached  almost  in  luxury,  and  on  its  main  routes  the  most 
delicate  dame  need  suffer  no  undue  discomfort.  In  the  whole 
of  Russia  there  is  not  a  hotel  so  clean  and  pleasant  as  the  Hotel 
de  Londres  at  Titlis.  I  cannot  think  wh.y  the  enterprising  and 
well-to-do  tourist,  who  has  exhausted  Europe,   does  not   turn 


X 


Caucasian  T3pes--Uie  Real  Circassian. 


I  ^ 


^ .,  ^„ 


■r'-':'."-..''-K'-t:*^--«'  V'"  r  -"/■•* ^i-it^ik^siirji^aShiiiftfl^*** 


178 


ALL     in  I      RISMAS 


his  steps  thither.      IVrhaps   lhc.>c  pa-cs   may   induce  hini   to  do 
so.     And  as  Mr.  Fre>hticKl,   who  jii>ily  claim.,  that   he  and   his 
companions  "took   the   first   step   toward   converting    the   prison 
of  Prometheus  into  a  new  play-rouud  lor  his  dc>cen(hmt>;'  .avs 
that  he  cannot  enforce  hi.>  recommendation  I)ctter  than  hv  echo- 
ing- the  exhortation  of  Mr.  CHnton   Dent,  so.  assuredly,  neith.er 
can   I.     "  If  you  worsinp  the  mountain^  f..r  their  own  sake;    if 
you  like  to  stand  face  to  face  with  natin-e,   wliere  she  mino-lcs 
the  fantastic  and  the  sublime  with  the  sylvan  and  the  idyllit-— 
snows,  crags  and  mists,  flowers  and  forests— in  perfect  haimiony; 
where  she  enhances  the  effect  of  her  picttires  hy  the  mo>t  start- 
ling contrasts,  and  enlivens  their  foreground.,  with  >ome  of  the 
most  varied  and  picturescpie  specimens  of  the  human  race— o 
to  the  Caucasus.      If  you  wr.h   to  change,  not  only  vour  cartli 
and  sky  but  your  century,  to  lind  ynm^vli  one  week  among  tlie 
paM..ral  i..lk  who., nee  peopled  \oriliern   Ana.  the  next  ani..ng 
barbarians    who    have    been    left    strand.-d    while    the    re^t    of    the 
world  has  dowed  on;    if  it   attracts  ynu  to  share  the  bivunac  of 
lauli  shepherds,  to  Mt  at  supn,.r  wiiii  n  feudal  cltu;iiaii!  wliile  his 
retainers  chant  trie  old  ban. id.  nt  llieir  race  hv  iiiv  li,.hi  ,a  Ln-cii- 
bark   torches — go   to   iht;  1,  aiica.ii,-.'"      I    wisnM   ..iih-   add.  go  to 
the  CaucaMj^  ab^   if  you  u.^iM   \-isii   a  ciix    wiiere  .ewnty  lan- 
guages are  :>i)oken,  .md  where  \uu  can  step  aside  from  ilie  npern- 
hini^c  and   tjie   electric  tramway  and  in  five  minutes  be  drink- 
"^^   ''''''^  ^rnin   an   ..x.4<in   and    talking  politics  and    revolution 
and  war  wiih  rn\^st5;rions  men  mi  the  real  n]<]  h^^K^iul,  all  know- 


..! 


J 


mg.  al!.i)].)tniig  f-ast.  the  while  vnn  bar-. mi  lur  a,  turuuoise  mum 


.'^' 


fehran,  ur  a    Inrk^anan   caryrt.  or  a   pinch 


r)f  thai    p(;rfnme  of 


"Strange  ]H,tenc\    w  hudi    i.   .  cu- 

East  doQs  not  willini-b-  uive  for  Wester 


^1    I  i  !e    \  er\     fi.; \\     t 


rings  that  the 


rv\  innd. 


But  the  traveller  in  the  Caucasus  woidd  be  unwise  to  let  his 
attention  l)e  monopolised  by  it.<  romance  and  picturesqueness, 


THE    FROSIT    CAUCASUS 


179 


to  the  exclusion  of  its  practical  and  commercial  interests.  These, 
however,  are  hardly  inferior  to  its  more  dazzling  side,  and  they 
are  growing,  and  destined  to  grow,  in  amazing  fashion.  Nature 
has  endowed  the  country  with  a  climate  in  which  anvthiuix  will 
tiourish,  and  the  soil  holds  mineral  wealth  in  vast  variety  and 
infinite  (piantity.  At  present  Russian  oi^cial  methods  seriously 
handicap  i)roduction,  but   M.   de  Witte's  influence  is  graduallv 


Baiuiii. 

rcmrn,big  obstructions  and  hastening  procedure.  If  he  lives,  and 
no  war  comes  tu  strain  bus.jan  resources,  the  next  ten  vear? 
will  see  all  the  world  astonished  at  the  commercial  (levelo|)meiit 
of  the  Caucasus,  ddie  |)rogress  of  the  oil  industry  of  Fkakti  every- 
bo(l\-  know^.  and  T  gi\e  the  astonishing  figures  in  a  subsecpient 
cha[)ter.  Hie  export  of  manganese  ore,  an  essential  of  the  steel 
mdustrv,  the  Caticasus  furnishing  exactly  half  of  the  world's 
supply,  was  426,179  tons  in    1900,  from  the  two  ports  of  Poti 


I  r  ' 


rx  '^a^  '•j<"<-^,» .-.-», <»  mjtti'vi' »r-,  <w^. 


'im.a^,  ►-'■« 


%   *    -   - 


i8o 


ALL   THE    RUSSL\S 


and  Batum.     As  reoanls  other  i)roductK)ns  the  British  Consul 
at  Batum,  Mr.  Patrick  Stevens,  who  speak.s  from  ultimate  knt)\\i- 
ed<'-e     savs    that    if    the    uncertaintv    that    hani;s    over    Russian 
official   methods   were   removed   "  there   can    he    no   shadow   of 
douht   that  the   boundless   resources  of   ihi^   country,   so   richly 
endowed  l)y  nature,  nnoju   i)e  developed  very   advantai,aM)Usly 
both   for  the   ca])italist   and   the   i)0|)ulation."   for   "  its   mineral 
wealth  is  practically  unlimited,  cop])er,  zinc,  iron,  tin,  and  many 
other  metals  l)eini;-  found  thr()Up:hout  the  rei^ion,  in  most  cases 
in  exceedingly  extensixe  de])osits."      Round  the  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea  are  several  Imperial  Instates,  known  as  "  ap])anages," 
where  excellent  wine  is  produced  in  large  (luaruilies.  and   this 
is  an  industry  whicli  might  be  greatly  extended  by  ex])erienced 
and  skilful  wine-growers  with  capital.     The  wine  of    Khaketia 
is  already  drunk  all  over  Russia.     Around  Batum  are  flourish- 
ing tea-i)lantations,  and  the  two  crops  already  gathered  are  said 
to  have  1)een  ver\-  satisfactory.     liilherto  Chinese  tea  has  aU^ie 
been  grown,   but   on   an   estate  of   the    Imperial    family    Indian 
tea   has   been    successfull\-    plruued,    and    further   ])lantati(  »ns   of 
this  are  now  to  be  made  near  Std<luun  and  in   Alingrelia.      A 
British  company  has  jtist  been  formed  to  develop  new  oildields. 
And  one  more  elo(|uent  fact  in  conclusion:    the  railwa}-  across 
the    Caticasus.    from    r)atum    on    the    Black    Sea    to    luiku    on 
the  Caspian,  six  lumdred  and  t  went \ -one  miles  in  thirty  hours, 
showed  a  net   profit   of  revenue  over  expenditure  last  year  of 
nearly  £1,000, oc:)0 — $5,000,000;    and  yet   the  rolling-stock  is  so 
inadecpiate  to  the  traftic  offered  that  a  large  amount  of  freight 
is  now  going  by  rail  round  the  mountain  range,  via  Petrofsk  and 
Vladikavkaz,  to  the  port  of  Xovorossisk,  instead  of  to  Batum. 
At  present  agriculture  alone  is  languishing  in  the  Caucasus,  but 
this  industry  has  its  ups  and  downs  everywhere,  and  when  it  is 
less  prosperous  there  is  the  more  labour  ayailable  for  commercial 
enterprise 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


THE  traftic  over  the  great  Georgian  Military  Road,  which 
connects  Europe  and  Asia  across  the  Caucasus,  is  in  the 
hands  of  contractors  who  work  under  strict  official  rules  and 
tarifY.*  Vou  visit  the  ofhce  at  \dadikavkaz,  inspect  a  series  of 
photographs  of  all  the  available  types  of  vehicle,  make  your 
choice,  pay  the  charge,  and  receive  a  ticket  which  you  show  cii 
route.  1  selected  a  carriage  in  shape  something  between  a  small 
victoria  and  a  small  barouche.  It  had  a  long  and  heavy  pole  for 
its  size  and  was  built  for  two  horses,  but  for  the  Pass  we  have 
an  extra  horse  hung  on  at  each  side  by  rope  traces.  All  four 
are  gray,  with  the  pretty  Russian  harness  of  thin  straps  dotted 
with  brass  buttons.  It  does  not  look  strong  enough  to  hold  a 
refractory  horse  for  a  minute,  and  even  the  four  single  reins  the 
driver  holds  in  his  hands,  though  thick  and  double,  are  so  twisted 
and  hardened  by  weather  that  they  might  be  expected  to  snap, 
like  all  unnourished  leather,  in  a  moment  of  emergency. 

Snugly  packed  in,  well  folded  in  furs  and  rugs,  and  our 
lighter  belongings  tucked  about  us  and  tied  on  wherever  there 
is  space  for  them,  we  rock  away  through  the  rugged  streets  of 
\dadikaykaz,  and  soon  we  have  passed  its  most  eastern  limit 
and  are  in  the  country.  All  mountain  ranges  have  the  same  be- 
ginnings in  the  plains— a  gentle  ascent,  rolling  foot-hills,  a  zig- 

*  The  charge  is  four  kopecks  (a  penny— 2  cents)  per  horse  per  verst,  and  the  dis- 
tance is  201  versts  (132  miles).  The  total  cost  for  a  two-seated  private  carriage  works 
out  at  about  ;,{:6— say  $30— for  the  trip.  Prince  IlilkofT,  Minister  of  Railways,  has 
just  made  the  journey  in  a  motor-car,  and  it  is  proposed  to  use  these  for  carrying  the 

mails  across  the  Pass. 

181 


I  82 


ALL    IHi;    RLSSIAS 


zaL-  road,  white  peaks  on  the  horizon  drawing  ever  nearer,  a 
(lashing,  si)lashing  river-keei)ing  company,  a  rocky  doccnt  ])c- 
side  the  narrow  road,  and  then  of  a  snchlen  a  chill  in  the  air  which 
may  be  intoxicating  to  the  mountaineer,  but  causes  the  plains- 
man to  draw  his  wrai)s  tighter  al)OUt  him.  Our  horses  travel 
splendidly,  and  we  do  not  yet  seem  to  l)e  mounting  sensibly; 
now  and  then  a  cream-coloured  sheep-dog,  in  shape  a  small  St. 
Bernard,  with  black  muzzle  and  cropped  black  ears,  thngh  him- 
self at  the  outer  horses  with  a  deep  and  savage  bark,  but  these, 
as  we  are  to  learn  |)resently,  have  l)rought  their  troops  and 
troops  of  sheep  out  of  the  high  mountains  for  the  winter,  and 
some  of  them  are  still  too  tired  to  get  up  out  of  the  roaduay. 

For  Fortune  gave  us  a  wonderful  ex])erience  in  thus  crossing 
the  Caucasus.  l'>y  chance  we  had  liu  upon  the  ver\-  day  clu)>en 
by  the  shepherds  to  bring  down  their  docks  from  the  sununer 
mountain  pasttires  to  their  winter  (juarters  in  the  plains — it  may 
have  been  a  Saim's  I  )a>  ,  sacred  by  tradition  to  this  change,  or 
perhaps  the  hrst  snows  of  winter  ga\e  the  signal.  I'rom  \'ladi- 
kavkaz  to  the  top  of  the  pass,  however,  we  met  the>e  docks  in 
such  numbers  as  1  had  never  dreanKHl  oi.  Shall  1  be  believed 
wlien  I  s;i\  that  durmg  that  da>  u  c  met  a  liuiulred  thousand 
sheep  and  goats^  1  iaiic\  ii  wa-.  iiiiich  more,  and  during  our 
hr^t  (lav  we  th^vdght  ot  lit  lie  else. 

The  whole  long  r^imple  l)U-inc^s  of  sheep-rearing,  Tn<>re  <'ir- 
chaic  to-dav  in  it-  ])urMiit  than  trie  breediiiL:  and  keeping  <»t  any 
other  animal,  is  dee|)l\-  interesting  from  many  a  \)^n\n  of  view. 
I  am  delighted  to  add  another  sheep  >!]hoiiette.  so  to  s|)eak.  to 
memories  I  have  gathered  of  "  the  meek-nosed,  the  i)assionle.sS 
faces  "  of  shee|)  in  other  ])arts  of  the  world.  The  C'aucaHan  sheej) 
— like  every  otlier  inhabitant,  brute  or  human,  of  these  moun- 
tains— abounds  in  character.  Unlike  other  l^astern  sheep,  it  is 
mainly  a  white  beast,  with  fawn-coloured  ears  and  fawn-coloured 
feet,  and  a  light  dash  of  freckles  upon  its  white  nose:  but  be- 
yond this  pretty  colouring  only  the  buttocks  are  remarkable,  and 


THE    GEORGL'\N    ROAD 


1^3 


these  because  they  carry  what  look  like  superfluous  cushions  of 
wool,  similar  in  shape,  if  I  am  permitted  the  illustration,  to  the 
''  bustles  "  of  twenty  vears  ago,  but  which  prove  to  be  lumps 
of  fat  between  which  depend  their  short  and  modest  tails. 
The  rams,  of  which  there  are  numbers,  have  horns  that  curve 
,n  double  curls,  and  though  they  are  relatively  small  like  the 
sheep  thev  are  beautiful  and  walk  with  pride  among  the  flock, 
stamping  iheir  feet  and  barking  from  time  to  time. 


V!adik:ivk:i7,  at  the  Foot  of  the  Caucasus. 


Deplorablv  mingled  with  the  sheep  are  goats-goats  of  ad 
.orts  and  stvl'es,  black,  brown,  white,  and  mottled:  goats  with 
.reat  horns'  sweeping  upward  and  over  their  backs,  or  wide- 
spread to  each  side,  or  even  malignly  twisted  one  over  another. 
Nothing  will  ever  make  a  goat  look  a  good  animal.  Even  a  l^d, 
.n  his  moment  of  prettiest  play,  is  impish  as  a  lamb  canno  tbe^ 
Nobodv  knows  why  this  is.  From  the  f^rst  a  goat  has  been  used 
as  at.  emblem  of  sin-though  nobody  who  knows  goats  can  un- 


M^Ulll'lg 


i84 


ALL    THi:    RUSSL^S 


derstand  why  they  should  be  tolerated  upon  the  left  hand,  where, 
after  all,  you  can  smell  them  just  as  much  as  if  they  were  upon 
the  ri^ht.    And  a  <>:oat  is  not  morally  sensitive;  it  will  not  realise 
anv  indignity  in  being  allowed  only   upon   the  left   hand,   while 
a  sheep  is  too  stupid   to  appreciate   any   compliment    in   being 
placed  upon  the  right.     However,  this  is  no  moment  for  theo- 
logical discussion.     I  was  about  to  say  that  in  the  classics,  in 
the  Scriptures  and  by  the  old  masters,  a  goat  has  always  sym- 
bolised evil,  (lei)ravily,  and  general  vileness.     The  moment  you 
see  goats,  you  understand  this.     Their  cross-set  agate  eyes  of 
salacious  regard:    their  flat,  ironical  noses  always  a-snufile,  their 
thin,   wicked  mouths   at   the   end   of  long  lascivious  faces — the 
thing  is   stamped  upon  them  :    goats  are  irremedially  and  im- 
memoriallv  bad,  and  it  is  only  the  deep  invulnerable  stupidity 
of  sheep  which  has  i)revented  them  from  knowing  it  and  being 
corrupted  bv   it,   and  has   preserved  to  the  world   innnaculate, 
snow-t)ure,  the  persistent,  inalienable  innocence  of  land)S. 

It  was  beautiful  to  watch  these  flocks,  quitting  the  fast- 
nesses that  have  harboured  them  all  sununer,  and  now,  ere  the 
sparse  vegetation  of  the  high  pastures  is  bedded  with  its  first 
coverlet  of  snow,  hurrying  down  to  the  open  plain  and  the  shel- 
ter of  the  reaped  maize-helds.  Januued  tight  together,  pouring 
along  like  a  tlood,  running  like  a  frothy  river  for  a  cjuarter  of  an 
hour  at  a  time  between  the  horses'  legs  and  the  wheels  of  the 
carriage,  the  w^hole  road  was  blocked  with  them.  Their  backs 
were  a  woolly  sea,  the  patter  of  their  innumerable  feet  was  like 
the  tide  upon  a  stony  beach.  One  grew  giddy  as  they  surged  by. 
What  a  reckoning  there  will  be.  when  they  reach  the  jiastures 
bv  the  river  l)elow,  to  see  how  many  more  the  herds  number 
when  thev  come  back  in  the  autumn  than  when  they  went  up  in 
the  spring!  The  bronzed  shepherds  in  huge  brown  felt  cloak, 
black  fur  hat  the  size  of  any  tea-cosy  on  their  swart  heads,  bashlik 
draped  at  hazard  in  lines  of  incxtinguishal)le  grace  upon  their 
powerful  shoulders,  and  ten-foot  staff  in  hand,  walk  at  their  head, 


THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


185 


amidst  them,  and  at  the  end  behind  the_ least  and  the  w   ak  st 
of  the  lambs.     When  they  see  our  carnage,  the  sheep  halt- 
halt  as  sheep  always  do,  neatly,  feet  together  very  even    almos 
•nh-hrst  position  "  of  the  dancing-class.    Then  t  e  shepherd 
ri       in  harsh  and  sharp  falsetto-is  it  the  cry  o    the  hawk  to 
n  th  .r  woollv  wits  together,  to  assemble  such  odds  ot  cunning 
a    n    >  have  b^en  given  them  for  the  eluding  of  their  enemy  the 
:,;„„'o,  ,1.  .agl.>-a„<l  .1.  flock  ,„„r.»  <«™a  a.     »  c, 
their  little  feet  poaching  the  dirtied  snow  and  making  that  deli 

e  ».-,  which  belongs  »,.,>-  .0  .he  pass,,,,  o    n»,y  s  . 
and  has  something  timid  and  feminine  and  ^^^^^^^^    f  ^^  ^^^ 
Sometimes  one  startled,  fooHsh  face  pokes  between  te  ^g 
our  horses,  and  at  once  a   blind,   unreasoning   dozen   o        o 
followers  dare  the  passage,  so  that  the  horse  starts  and  screams 
in  frieht  and  is  shouted  at  by  the  driver.  ^ 

men  the  stream  is  flowing  evenly  past  the  two  carriages 
the  shepherds  whistle  encouragingly  and  the  -eam-cok>ured 
dogs  with  their  sinister  faces  turned  our  way,  pass  with  mis- 
dogs,  wiui  adverse  demon- 

trustful  feet.    They  are  too  weaned  to  make  any 
stration-    for  days  they  have  been  harrymg  the  flock  upon  the 
Tntai'ns,  collecting  stragglers,  constraining  ohsti,.te  c  mher. 
circumventing  the  astutely  divagating  goat,  now  dog-t.red  and 
sullen  they  are  wending  with  the  rest  to  the  plam   the.r  pupp,e 
-soft,  furry  love-pledges  of  a  wild  summer-lookmg  ov  r  the 
ed<^es  of  the  saddle-pockets  of  the  flock-<lonkey  or  the  shepherd  . 
horse     How  innocent  and  frank  and  pretty  are  the  puppy-faces; 
how  charmingly  they  extricate  f^rst  one  and  then  another  soft, 
supple  paw,  and  hang  it  out  till  the  shepherd  sees  them  and  hur- 
riedlv  crams  it  in  again  and  binds  the  edges  of  the  pocket  t.ghter 
round  the  puppy  neck.     I  was  so  enchanted  bv  these  creat..es^ 
even  by  the  open  enmity  of  their  large  savage  paren^.  that  1 
priced  a  ravishingly  beautiful  puppoose  (^'^  -uld  be  a  n 
Lrd)  and  learned  that  its  Pf  -  above  rc.^  e^^ 
for  five  would  its  master  part  with  it.    Ferhaps  naa 


i86 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


a  gold-piece  of  five  I  should  at  this  moment  be  cluttered,  as  the 
Yorkshire  people  say,  with  a  cream-coloured  Caucasian  puppy 
of  Circassian  beauty  and  a  latent  savagery  to  terrify  a  whole 

English  county. 

I  dwell  overlong  upon  these  by-sights  of  the  road,  but  in- 
deed most  of  our  first  day  went  in  passing  that  sea  of  sheep 
and  goats,  and  the  dogs  and  the  humble  llock-donkey,  bridleless 


The  Gei.ri;Lin  Rr-Ad     a  W'-liy   Wave. 

and  bitle-s  and  l)ur(lened  with  all  the  huge  hairv  felt  mantles  o{ 
the  shepherds,  pattering  meeklv  among  the  crowd,  were  always 
with  us.  After  a  spell  of  a  dozen  versts  or  so,  we  drew  up  at  a 
post-station.  These,  like  the  excellent  military  road,  are  main- 
tained by  the  Government,  and  entertainment  can  l)e  had  at 
them  of  a  modest  character.  In  the  barrackdike  building,  very 
grey  and  cold,  we  passed  iii^linclixely  toward  a  door  on  which 


THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


187 


was  the  ^vord  "  Buffet,"  written  phonetically  in  Russian  letters 
ro   h^  e  vhh  "  muffet."    A  Uttle  bar,  with  "  snacks     ot  sausag 
hernng    and  Caucasian  cheese  m  front,  and  bottles  of  vodka  at 

^"r;i;:r:;:^e  mountains  fell  upon  U.s^.^^^^ 
and  in  the  sharp  cold  a  camel  and  a  scatter  of  br.stly  p>8^  "^-le 
a    odd  lup.     Soon  our  fresh  horses  were  harnessed   and  tins 
ne    as^ve  followed  the  course  of  a  l.ttle  nver  m  a  large  and 
tune,  as  we  louou  amono-  the  mountams. 

gravelly  bed,  we  felt  ourselves  at  last  amon,  t 
The  ve<^etation  of  the  valley  was  uiterestnig.  and   I    ndul.ed 
01     h  bh  of  collectn.g  berries  of  shrubs  and  trees  that  were 
'e.-a  tlnn^  that  looked  like  a  willow  and  had  n.an>  oiange 

.,e     c,ust:red  t.ghtly   to  its  stem   and  long   spn.es-a  so 
s,,rav  of  barberrv.  tlnnner  and  pinker  than  ours   a    1  omejo 
;  ,,;.  i„  ,,.  own  far-away  garden.     Turkc>   oaks,  falnn     n   . 
To  vellow,  crowde.1  and  hung  from  the  chff  upon  our  r,gh  ,  a , ^ 
the  usual  sorts  of  rock-ferns  nestled  in  the  damp  seams  of  the 

^'^The  engineering  of  the  road  was  masterly,  and,  like  all  n.oun- 
,,„,,,,,.  that  hav.  presented  great  difficnhic.  u  every   now 

„::i   tluT,  nK.lc  '..l.t  ut  senou-  r.k  1,>    nnu.ng  close  to  huge 
overhanging  lumps  of  mountain  wl.ch,  it  not  to-day  on  my   h,. 
tltcn   to-.n.rrow   on  yours.  w.U   <le.cend  convntctnglv.  c     - 

,,,ere  the  greatest  care  ,s  taken  of  this  ntost  nnportattt      thta ,. 

•    .  \.f/A    flint    rmintrv    ^llC    COVCtCu    .^^^ 

highwav-Kussta  s  avenue   mto  that   eotn.tr>      1  e 

.  1  !.   ;-  o^xx-  tri  midcr^taiiil    icr  pabSionait  ui 

fou-h!  for  ?n  long.     It  i-  cM>y  to  unuci.  uti  i  ^ 

.,re^.  possess  thts  great  range,  thi=  fttte  race  or  tangk^  n,  ,-,ne 
"race,  thts  fen.le  cnuntrv  on  the  southern  slopes.  It  1  weu-  K.^- 
s,a,  and  a^  Hat  as  Russta,  wtth  ottlv  the  Ural^  to  ponU  to  a-  K  - 
sian  mountains.  I  should  have  wanted  the  Caucasus  ) -  -  «  - 
and  I  would  have  sacrificed  the  men  of  whole  province,  of  plain 

life  to  possess  them,  ^^^^^  posting-station  of  Balta; 

Eio-ht  m  es  from  Vladikavkaz  ib  tne  po.ui  ,., 
de^^n^miles  farther  is  Lars:   and  f^ve  miles  farther  is  the  world- 


i88 


ALL    nil.    KLSSLAS 


TLIE    GKORGL^N    ROAD 


189 


famous  Gorge  of  Dariel,  llic  "  Cauca>ia!i  Gates  "  of  Pliny,  the 
dark  and  awful  delile  between  lun-ope  and  A-ia.  (iradually,  as 
we  drive  on,  the  hills  rise  and  elose  ni  on  us  till  at  length  they 
fall  almost  sheer  to  the  edge  of  the  ruslung  Terek  and  the  nar- 
row road,  leaving  only  just  room  for  these  at  the  bottom  of  a 
roeky  eleft,  5,000  feet  deep.  Tlie  air  strikes  ehill  as  a  vault:  not 
a  ray  of  sunshine  enters;  the  driver  stoops  low  and  lashes  his 
horses;  instinctively  we  lapse  into  silence.  The  geologist  calls 
this  gorge  a  "  fault,"  for  it  is  not  a  pass  over  the  mountain-chain, 
but  a  rent  clear  across  it.  'l"o  the  imaginative  traveller,  how- 
ever, it  is  a  fit  scene  for  the  most  wonderful  highway  in  history. 
Seventy  years  ago  it  was  a  perilous  road,  for  avalanches,  or  the 
sudden  outbursts  of  pciu-up  glacial  >l reams,  swept  it  from  end 
to  end.  l)ut  the  Russians  have  spent  twenty  nnllion  dollars  upon 
it  and  made  it  safe.  In  iS;;  iicarlx-  all  iheir  troops  and  >tores 
for  carrving  the  war  into  1'nrkev  and  A-ia  came  l)y  this  road, 
and  it  will  be  used  again  for  tlie  same  purpose,  although  to  a 
much  les<^  degree,  for  there  i<  now  direct  railway  connection  from 
Moscow  to  Baku,  at  one  end  of  the  IVans-Ganca-ian  Railway, 
and  therefore  to  l\ar<  it-elf.  r/./  TiHi-;  an.l  equall\-  t.>  Kars  from 
Batiim.  at  tlie  r^tlier  enrl.  to  wliieh  fr.rtified  port  -teaniers  w( add 
hrinir  troops  and  <n]4)lies  fnnn  Ode^-a  and  Xovorossisk  ni  the 
T>1ack  Sea.     "Hie  Lronre-  nf  the  Ynnir-t^ze  nia\   be  <i>  niipre-ive 

-"■I  liave  not   ■^ci-n  tliein-^^^ -but   there  is  n^.tlnni:  m  I'lirope  winch 

produce-  <r^  jirofniind  ai!  effect  oi  di-e;Ml  upe.11  the  iiinid  a-  this 
lonely,  silent,  gl.Hiniv.  c<'ld  abv^m  of  Daneb  \^n\  -lo  not  won- 
der that  an\-  people  holdnig  it  could  bar  the  \v:i\    to  the  reM,  e)f 

the  world the  onlv  cati<e  f<'r  ^nrpri^^e  is  tliat  befe^re  tlie  pre-ent 

road  was  con-trncted  anvbud\-  ex'er  L^'ot  through  it  at  all.  It 
e\-en  said.  "  1dni-  far  and  !m»  lanluT,"'  to  IxMine  liea>el!,  ami 
marked  the  liirn't  of  her  ibnninioti. 

The  gorge  ends  suddenlv,  as  we  dash  at  a  right  angle  over 
a  narrow  bridge,  and  find  a  most  |)ictnre-qnc  sight  before  us. 
The  valley  has  now  a  fiat  fioor  between  its  two  rugged  walls  of 


,c,ck.  an.l  n.an  has  turned  such  a  narrow  n.nnntan.,a,,    u  1   . 
own  uses,  as  was  „,evuab,c  when  Europe  ,s  at  one  ettd  an    As 
,,  U>e  other,  lor  .uaaenly.  where  the  voa.l  wulen.  to  a  Ku    -iat 

,   ;    a  Rus.an  .ortre.s  >prntgs  ,nto  v,ew-a  sc.uare  hn   >h„g, 
;„,r,or„er  towers,   hattletnents  and   loopholes,  preasely   the 

„,,,,..  „f   the  fan-v-tale  attd   the  box   of  bricks.      The   gtnde- 
b     I   e^en  the  trusty  Murray,  points  out  that  the  tort  of  Dartel 


The  Georirinn  K-^A-  Russian  F-^vi   in  the  Pass. 

is  co,i.ttanded  by  the  .,rronndi,i,  '"--•-"'-;;-:;'^^.ff  .^^"\"  "; 
„u.n,v  could  not  draw  anv  cannon  t,p  thetr  stdes,  !  ..~^-luu^_ 
,r„e-nn1e«  thev  took  their  cannon  up  in  balloons.  A  0>.,,.. 
.en.rv  lonncres  before  the  ,eate  and  scrutinises  trie  susptcouMv 
;:;  stop  t,;  cama^e  and  ,et  out  tttv  cantera  but  there  .  no 
other  sign  of  life.  The  choice  of  such  a  spot,  however,  to  , s- 
,„ne  the  passao-e  of  the  Pass  was  ant.cipated  Ion,.  Ion,  a,o.  tor 


i88 


ALL    im:    RUSSIAS 


famous  Gorge  of  Dariel,  the  "  Caucasian  Gates  "  of  Pliny,  the 
dark  and  awful  detile  between  luirope  and  Asia.     Gradually,  as 
we  drive  on,  the  hills  rise  and  close  in  on  us  till  at  leni;th  they 
fall  almost  sheer  to  the  edge  of  the  rushing   Terek  and  the  nar- 
row road,  leavmg  only  just  room  for  these  at  the  bottom  of  a 
rocky  cleft,  5,000  feet  deep.     The  air  strikes  chill  as  a  \ault;    not 
a  ray  of  sunshine  enters;    the  driver  stoops  low  and  lashes  his 
horses;    instinctively  we  lapse  into  silence.     The  geologist  calls 
this  gorge  a  "  fault,"  for  it  is  not  a  pass  over  the  mountain-chain, 
but  a  rent  clear  across  it.     To  the  imaginative  traveller,  how- 
ever, it  is  a  fit  scene  for  the  most  wonderful  highway  in  history. 
Seventy  years  ago  it  was  a  perilous  road,  for  avalanches,  or  the 
sudden  outbursts  of  pent-up  glacial  >trcams,  swept  it  from  end 
to  end,  but  the  Russians  have  spent  twenty  million  dollars  upon 
it  and  made  it  safe.      In    iS-j-  iicarK-  all  tlu-ir  tr(H)p>  and  >tores 
for  carrying  the   war  hm^  Tnrkev  and   A-ia   came  l)v   this  road, 
an<]  it  will  lie  used  a.uain   f(-r  the  ^ame  purpo-e,   althougli   to  a 
much  less  dec^ree.  for  tliere  is  n^^w  (Hrcct  raihva\-  connection  from 
Moscow  to   P.akn.  at  one  end  < -f  tjie  ITan^^-ranea^ian    Railway, 
and  tIK■rcf^u-e  to  l\ar<  it-elf.  7'ia  Tiilis;   and  tM|iia!i\    u>  K.ir-  fr<  mi 
Batnni.  at  ihe  f*tlirr  cud...  in  wIik-Ii   ffiftitird  f^ort  '^tcamers  \s-oiild 
brinLf  ir^'Op^  and  -npfiiies  from  «  Odessa  and  Novorossisk  in   tlie 
Black  Sea.     The  c:orge^  of  llic   \'ang-tsze  niav   be  a:^  ui!i'rr--i\-e 
—  T  ba\-e  not  seen  tlicni — but  tlicrc  i-^  n^ 'tiling-  in  PiirMpv  wiiicli 
produce^  -o  [irofound  an  i'ffect  of  drrad  uj'nn   ilie  niind  a^  this 
lonoh'.  ^ilent.  i^Txinna  aAA  a!M.-m  of  Dariel.      \*'\\  '.\n  nnf  won- 
der tliat  aii\-  pco|»]e  liOidiiu:  it   e-inld  bai"  the  \wi\    lo  iik-  n-i  of 
the  world—- -ilic  (mh'  can-e  f' t  -nr|trisc  is  thai   licforc  tlic  jua'-cn.t 
road   was  constructed   an\-bud\-   ever  got   through   it    at    all.      It 
e\cn    <ai(l.    "Tim-    far   and    no    larilicr/*    to    Rome    lier.-ell,   and 
marked  the  linn't  t>f  her  dominion. 

The  gorge  ends  suddenlv.  a<  we  da<h  at  a  riglit  angle  over 
a  narrow  bridge,  and  find  a  mo-t  pieture-fpie  sight  betore  ns. 
The  valley  has  now  a  tlat  iloor  between  its  two  rugged  walls  of 


THE    GKOKGL^xN    ROAD 


189 


rock,  and  man  lias  turned  such  a  narrow  mountain-gap  to  his 
own  uses,  as  was  inevitable  when  Europe  is  at  one  end  and  Asia 
at  the  other,  for  suddenly,  where  the  road  widens  to  a  tew  tkit 
acres,  a  Russian  fortress  sprmgs  mto  view— a  square  building, 
with  corner  towers,  battlements  and  loopholes,  precisely  the 
fortress  of  the  fairy-tale  and  the  box  of  bricks.  The  guide- 
book, even  the  trusty  Murray,  points  out  that  the  fort  of  Dariel 


Til-'  Geor^rian  Road— Russian  F  M't  in  the  Pass. 

is  commanded  l^v  the  surrounding  mountain^,  but  adds  iliat  "  an 
enemv  eonld  not  diMW  anv  cannon  up  their  sides."  This  is  quite 
true— unless  thev  took  thefr  cannon  up  in  balloons.  A  Cossack 
sentry  lounges  before  the  gate  and  scrutinises  me  suspiciously 
as  I  stop  the  carriage  and  get  out  my  camera,  but  there  is  no 
other  sign  of  life.  The  choice  of  such  a  spot,  however,  to  dis- 
I)nte  the  pa'^sao'c  of  the  Pass  was  anticipated  long,  long  ago.  for 


190 


ALL     IMi:    RUSSL'IS 


THE    GEORGL^N    ROAD 


191 


on  the  summit  of  a  peak  high  above  the  modern  fortress  stand 
the  ruins  of  a  greater  ancient  castle,  the  rocky  and  imi)regnahle 
home  of  the  Princess  Tamara — not  her  of  history,  but  her  of 
immortal  legend,  in  which  truth  and  fancy  can  never  again  be 
plucked  apart.  It  is  said  that  hither  came  all  her  lovers,  an  ever- 
flowing  stream,  since  she  was  of  resistless  beauty,  and  that  when 
her  fancy  tired  of  them  thev  were  hurled  into  the  torrent  l)e- 
low.  In  this  castle  passes  the  action  of  Lermontof's  play  "The 
Demon,"  but  he  has  none  of  this  gruesome  story,  though  Tama- 
ra's  beauty  is  there: 

Witness,  thou  star  of  midnight,  witness,  sun. 
Rising  and  setting,  king  upon  his  throne, 
Nor  Shah  of  golden  Persia,  e'er  did  kiss 
A  face  so  bright,  so  beautiful  as  this  ; 
No  liouri  in  the  noontide  heat  did  lave 
A  form  so  perfect  in  the  fountain's  wave. 
And  lover's  hand,  since  luien's  days,  I  trow, 
Ne'er  smoothed  the  wrinkles  from  so  fair  a  brow.* 

But  as  one  gazes  up  at  these  ruins  in  the  spot  of  all  the  world 
apt  to  breed  the  romance  and  passion  and  war  of  days  when  life 
was  thick-set  W'ith  such,  one  earnestly  longs  to  pierce  the  trivial 
veil  of  legend  and  poetry,  and  know  what  really  happened  there 
— just  the  daily  life  of  the  men  and  women  who  looked  along 
Dariel  from  that  high-built  eyrie.  These  battlemented  and  loop- 
holed  towers  repulse  or  yield  to  attacks  which  change  with  the 
changing  years,  but  the  stronghold  of  the  heart  knew  then,  as 
it  knows  to-day.  but  one  plan  of  sa|)  and  mine,  and  it  is  rarely 
safe  from  treacherv  within.  T^rincess  Tamara,  did  your  lonely 
castle  in  this  gorge,  so  cold  and  dark  at  midday,  keep  you  safe 
from  the  insidious  foe?    I  would  c:ive  much  to  know  vour  storv. 

The  day  w^as  done  when  we  came  up  to  the  post-house  called 
after  Mount  Kasbek,  and  round  us,  in  a  close  group,  rose  the 

*  Storr's  Translation. 


splendid  peaks  of  which  he  is  the  chief.     Kasbek  is  to  my  eye 
more  beautiful  than  Elbruz  with  its  divided  peaks;   it  is  steeper, 
with  terribly  sheer  slopes,  gorges,  and  glaciers  around  it,  itself 
ending  in  a'savage  spike  of  rocks  against  the  sky,  while  Elbruz, 
really  much  higher  and  more  dil^cult  to  climb  (Elbruz  is  18,470 
feet  and  Kasbek  16,546*),  has  larger  and  milder-looking  sum- 
mits.   This  is  a  mistake  in  a  mountain;   the  proper  mountain  is 
the  blue  and  white  kind,  of  which  you  can  see  at  least  ten  thou- 
sand feet  ''  out  of  the  ground,"  so  to  speak,  with  a  peak  offering 
room  for  no  more  than  the  two  feet  of  one  climber  at  a  time, 
and  he  so  perilously  placed  that  he  must  hold  a  cloud  by  the  tail 
if  he  would  stay  there.     This  is  the  character  of  Kasbek— from 

below. 

The  post-house  is  again  a  bleak  white  building,  with  a  large 
square  yard  behind  it,  round  three  sides  of  which  are  stables  to 
accommodate  the  numerous  horses  required  for  relays.  In  the 
middle  of  this  yard  another  huge  old  camel  is  standing,  his  head 
balanced  upon  his  absurd  neck  and  his  mouth  supercilious  as 
are  all  camels  in  the  desert;  seen  against  this  snowy  background 
there  is  something  irresistibly  incongruous  about  his  appearance. 
He  prowls  about,  ungroomed,  loose,  ignored,  padding  silently 
where  he  is  not  wanted,  thrusting  his  horrid  nose  into  what  does 
not  concern  him.  At  f^rst  I  thought  this  beast  was  merely  rest- 
ing between  loads,  but  when  he  reappeared  regularly  at  the  end 

•  Kasbek  and  Elbruz  were  f^rst  climbed  in  1868  by  Messrs.   Douglas  Freshf^eld 

Comyns  Tucker,  and  Adolphus  W.  Moore.     When  near  the  summit  they  sent  back 

their  guide,  and  his  statements  were  at  first  received  with  absolute  mcredulity.      But 

when  the  three  Englishmen  reappeared  from  the  opposite  valley,  havmg  gone  up  one 

.ide  of  the  mountain  and  down  the  other,  even  the  unwilling  natives  had  to  admit 

thit    the    impossil)le    had    been    accomplished.      Elbruz    was    again    climbed  in    1875 

bv   Mr    F    Crauford  Grove,   and    m    1884   by  M.   de  Dechy,   a  Hungarian   Alpinist. 

Hut' the  curious  jealousy  of  foreigners  makes  local  writers  still  loath  to    admit    the 

fact,  though  repeated  descriptions  have  made  the  ascents  familiar  to  all  the  world. 

In  his   4uide  au  Caucase."  published  in   1891.    M.   J.   Mourier  has    this   amusmg 

sentence  about    Kasbek:     "  Trois    anglais:    Freschwild.    ^'Z'  ''    ^'T\''rTZ 

du  club  alpestre  de  Londres,  pretendent  etre  parvenus  jusqu  a  sa  cime  le  18/30  Jum, 

1868." 


•f-».,<»»i>. 


192 


ALL   THL    RUSSIAS 


of  each  stage,  I  saw  he  served  some  curious  purpose.  It  is  this: 
droves  of  camels  come  from  time  to  lime  over  the  Pass.  an<l  un- 
less the  horses  were  accustomed  to  the  si-ht  and  smell  of  these 
mis-shapen  creatures  they  would  take  fri-ht,  perhaps  where  the 
way  was  narrow  and  the  cliffs  steep,  and  a  catastrophe  would 
result.  Therefore  at  each  station  lives  a  camel,  whose  only  busi- 
ness in  life  is  to  scare  each  passing-  horse  into  the  contempt  which 


The  Crxtle    4  rrin.\>ss  Tamnra  in  the  Gorge  of  Dariel,  Georirian  Road. 

laniiiiaritv  hn/i-d^v     rcrliaps  he  understands  this,  and  that  is  why 

he  -talk-  uuiicard  up  f.^  a  pantiii-,  -wcaiiiii;  aaiimal  nucnching 
its  thir>t,  and  -uddcnlx^  llnaist-  hi,-^  l.n]-  hnirv  face  at  11,  ni-t  :is 
naughty  children  say  "  P.oo!  "  to  each  otluT  wlien  tlicv  meet 
in  the  dark.  It  i<  one  of  thc^sc  ^mple  cxplanaimn^  which  vet 
Strike  one  as  ludicrou>.   and  at   each   p<.M  lionse    1    am   Munten 


THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


193 


anew  by  this  strange  exigency,  and  this  fresh  proof  of  Russia's 
boundless  ethnological  complications. 

We  are  to  stay  over-night  at  Kasbek,  and  we  make  our- 
selves comfortable  in  the  barrack-like  chambers  that  are  placed 
at  our  disposal.  When  we  descend  to  the  bulYet  for  dinner, 
our  enthusiasm  hurls  us  in  the  direction  of  the  national  fl^it  of 
sJiasJiIik — the  delicious  Caucasian  mutton,  cooked  a  la  brocJic 
over  a  wood  fire.  We  wait  in  happy  impatience  for  its  arrival, 
stemming  our  hunger  with  a  zakiishka  of  raw  herring,  with  brown 
bread,  and  drafts  of  quaint  Caucasian  wine,  which  we  profess 
determinedly,  if  with  some  elTort,  to  find  delicious. 

By  and  by  a  profound  and  searching  steam  of  rawish  but  not 
quite  raw  onion  invades  the  bufTet;  this  is  onion  at  its  very 
worst  momeiU:  raw  onion  is  tolerable,  cooked  onion  is  ])a1at- 
able,  onion  that  has  merely  suffered  a  heat-change  is  devastat- 
m<'-  in  its  efi'ect  ui)on  the  soul  of  the  feeder.  We  become  nervous, 
and  when  a  Circa--ian  person  comes  in  bearing  that  onion  which 
is  apparently  allied  10  the  hoped-for  sliaslilik,  we  wince  palpably. 
Some  rou-hlv  c]ioppe<l  l<>in  ^.i  mutton,  smoked  without  and 
crude  within,  smothered  in  the  aforesaid  onion,  manifest-  it-clf, 
and.  tnnidl)  wc  address  ourselves  to  it.  Fork  and  knife  recoil 
Mniuhaneously  from  each  knobby  piece,  and  one  ninuthhi:  ^vhich 
never  gets  any  farther)  contents  each  inquiring  palate.  The 
meat.  Iiarked  without  any  relation  to  iib  librc,  its  grain,  or  its 
bones,  is  absolutely  fresh,  is  also  quite  uncooked,  and  only  hours 
of  stewing  could  have  made  it  fit  to  eat. 

''  Would  you  try  the  plat  national  again? — it  might  be  better 
here,"  says  someone,  a  day  or  two  later.  ''  Not  again,"  is  the 
reply;  'Met  us  wait  till  we  get  to  Kn-land:  mv  cook  does  it 
beaiitiinliv:  Xavcts  dc  niouton  a  la  brochc.  Xo  more  Circassian 
shashlik  baa-ing  at  me,  if  you  please." 

I  made  plans  at  Kasbek  for  an  early  ride  up  the  mountains 
opposite,  to  see  the  little  ancient  church,  1,400  feet  above  us, 
of  Tsminda-Sameba.   not  that  of  itself   this  presents  much   in- 


ic^4  ALL     rm:    lU  SSIAS 

tcrest.  but  the  view  of  the  muuntain,  and  especially  of  its  ^reat 
black  side  where  IVometheus  was  chaine<l  (thon-h  the  le-end  is 
inaccurate  alter  all,  for  .Lschylus  di>tinctly  >i)eak>  of  Tio- 
nietheus's  rock  as  above  the  sea  and  far  fruin  the  l-auca>u>),  was 
said  to  be  beautiful,  and  1  wished  to  enjny  a  ride  m  true  Cau- 
casian spirit.  A  (piarter  to  seven  wa^  the  hnnr  fixed,  and  I 
retired  earlv,  to  be  readv.     When  I  arose  at  six,  it  was  upon  a 


THK    GLORGLIN    ROAD 


^95 


,vurkl  ni  Mb^u    thai    I    looked  out.     Everything:  was  white,  and 

tliat  Inroad  flaked.  (  TiriM  mas-card  kind  oi  >nuw  we  u^cd  Lu  have 

oas  fallincr.     The  stal)les  and  Hie  vard  were  white; 

iiii:ii|)S,  and 

al)Mird  tuits  ot  11  all  oxer  liun:  vmi  r^idd  not  ^er  flftv  varrk  awav. 
and  all  the  iiKaintaii!-  had  retired  wiihin  iiu-  \rii.  1  hw  put  <dt 
my  ride,  and  even  alarmed  u^  ^rnnewliat  ak..ut  the  Pa^.>  and  US 
condition.     There  was  no  iiii^~t;ike ^~the  miow  liad  eoine  to  -tav: 


the   p»Hir   camel   i-x'cn    had    hule   drill-    ueiwecn    nn 


it  was  winter  snow.     What  I  saw  fall  as  I  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow would  be  there  till  next  April. 

We  started  at  once,  the  hood  of  the  carria^^e  up,  and  little 
visible  beyond  the  back  of  the  driver  in  his  thick  ])leated  woollen 
crown,  but  all  round  in  the  i^rey  air  the  broad  flakes  were  in  sus- 
pension, apparently  falling  with  that  slow  deliberation,  that  in- 
credible downy  lightness,  and  that  incalculable  vagary  of  direc- 
tion  that   characterise   real   snow.     Suddenly,  out  of  the  grey 
mystery  in  front  of  us,  a 
troop  of  Cossack  soldiers 
came  riding,  a  couple  of 
hundred  of  them,  return- 
ing from  th^eir  service  on 
the  Armenian  frontier  to 
their  little  villages  in  the 
plain.      These    men     are 
supplied    vith    rides    and 
annnnmiK  ai    h_\     (  k  uern- 
men!  ;      \  luar     w  ir\     little 
hur.-.eb,    lliear   armour}    of 
sabres,  knives,  and  pistols, 
are  their  own.    Shrouded 
in  the  black,  shaggy,  felt 
cloak  that  descends  to  the 
horse's    tail,    and    nearly 
covers    their    big    felt 

boots  in  the  short  stirrups,  cowled  each  in  his  pointed  basJiIik, 
a  hood  witli  tv  o  ends  wound  round  the  neck  and  falling  down 
the  back,  they  seemed  like  some  ghostly  procession  of  war- 
like fnar-  pa-m-  m  d..\\  defile,  h^ach  cone-shaped  silhouette 
upon  his  In-h  -addle,  wiili  wild  face — and  what  faces  thcv  were! 

luokin^-   straight   in    front    of   him    ua-   the   incarnati^jii   ui   all 

that  is  picturescjue.  romantic,  in  a  w(  rd.  (  aucasian. 

Presently  the  veil  was  lifted;    the  ikakes  grew  slimmer  and 


The  Georgian  Road,  the  Top  of  the  Pass— 

Olct  Road. 


/V 


/V 


196 


Al.L    IHK    KLSSIAS 


finer    the  sun  Hashed  out.  the  hoo.l  of  the  earna.^e  wa.  thrown 
back    and  there  beside  us.   nuuUled  m   a   ilawlc.s  ernnne,   was 
Kasliek  and  h,s  court   of  peaks.  br>,.ht  an,l  ^httern,,  a.uaui.t  a 
heaven  of  Italian  bh.e.     In  his  winter  majesty,  every  seatn  and 
fissure  of  vesterdav.  filled  a.ul  snwothed  with  one  n.oht^lall  ot 
snow   he  was  scarce  to  he  looked  on  by  his  subjects.    And  now, 
with  uKuu  a  ...gv-aK.  the  road  mounte.l  ,n  good  earnest:   we  en- 
countered the  .nunohile  oxen  yoked  to  the  snow-ploughs,  we 
came   upon   the  artificial  tunnels,   nuule  to  accommodate   ava- 
lanches     These  places  where  the  road  suddenlv  runs  trnder  a 
stoutlv  timbered  roof  built  ag.mst  the  mountain-side,  brmg  home 
to  one  the  chances  of  winter,  an<l  the  eventualities  that  inay- 
,.,„^1  ,,{ten  do-overtakc  the  faithful  ,,ost-wagon  wnh  its  l.uro- 
pean  mails  for  Tifiis.     As  we  approach  them,  1  can  imagine  the 
ton^  of  snow  aii<l  loosened  boulder,  plunging  do.  n  ,l,e  >teep. 
toward  the  river,  here  growing  slender  as  a  thread,  and  the  aw- 
fnl  tlunuler  of  tiK.m  explo.ling  over  these  mau-inadc  de.ence. 

I  ike  all  .uch  work,  .-uul  much  of  ,lie  construction  work   1  have 
•     ,.       ;.,    ,lu..e  avdanche-roofs  are  splendidly  built;    there 
seen  in   Kn>>ia,  tia>e  axdiauLiiL  i 

is  no  trail  of  the  contractor  over  .hem;   whether  the  <  .overnment 
does  us  own  work  or  onunictor.  are  d.heren,  here,  1  kn.,w  not, 

IHU  assuredlv  the  highway  by  winch  Russia's  lunpire  ,.  moving 
.edulouslv   forward   is  made   .0  endure,   and  to  carry   the  greal 

weight  of  her  power.  ^    v     \\  ■ 

At  the  top  of  the  Pa-  is  a  small  cross  np-n  ihc  Inb  ^d., 
standing  out  m  black  relief  up,.n  a  snowy  shoulder.  Many  gen- 
erations ago  it  was  set  to  mark  the  summu--7."77  '-■>■  ^'"'    ''> 

-  1  1   ,        '11,;^    flii'n    is  ilie  •~econd  tune  luu- 

ihe  road  is  one  ot  later  ikite.     1  Ins,  tlieu,  is  uie  .  ^ 

,„...  „v  present  ,ournev  th;U  1  have  crossed  a  nionl.un-range 
from  Kurope  into  .\sia.  Xo  .\lpine  pass,  except  the  S.elvio. 
which  IS  .,.040  feet  high,  is  so  high  as  this.  Seldom  can  .1  be 
given  to  anvone  to  see  great  uK.untains  m  more  exquisite  aspect 
than  I  saw'these  at  the  top  of  that  pass.  Peak  after  peak  bit- 
in-  the  skv  in  sharp  outline;   snow  but  a  few  hours  old,  .un  an<l 


THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


197 


heavens  (lazzlin^ly  clear  and  (lee])ly  ])lne:  tlie  air  keen  and  in- 
toxicating; once  more  the  never-faihng  though  so  often  tasted 
intoxication  of  the  East  in  front — it  was  one  of  the  days  of  a  life- 


tnne. 


Then  came  the  wild  rush  from  the  water-parting  to  the  val- 
lev.     Two  fresh  horses  and  a  liilarious  driver,  whom  1  encour- 


Crossing  the  Summit  of  the  Ge«»ririan  Road. 

ao-cd  l)v  the  r)romise  of  a  ronl)le  if  he  drove  well,  carried  us  at 
breakneck  s])eed  down  a  road  zigzagging  like  the  lacing  of  a  foot- 
hall.  On  the  north  the  range  is  barren  and  deserted,  on  the 
south  it  is  green,  with  quaint  villages  nestling  in  fertile  valleys 
and  little  haystacks  by  the  thousand  telling  of  a  fragrant  sum- 
mer past.  At  full  gallop  down  the  slopes,  with  a  sickening  swing 
round  each  corner,  both  inside  wheels  of¥  the  ground,  we  came, 


198 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


THE    GEORGIAN    ROAD 


199 


the  driver,  shouting  in  glee  and  swishing-  his  savage  Uttle  whip, 
looking  back  with  a  smile  for  ai)i)roval  as  we  just  escaped  going 
wholesale  and  headlong  over  the  cliff  at  each  turn.  Having 
promised  him  one  rouble  to  go  fast  1  would  gladly  have  given 
him  several  to  go  slow,  but  his  own  enjoyment  was  far  too  keen 
to  heed  our  breathless  protests. 

The  vegetation  on  this  southern  side  began  with  a  sudden- 
ness almost  unbelievable;    first  that  obstinate  and  crouching  lit- 
tle tir-tree,  ascetic  as  a  fakir,  and  nourished   upon  escarpments 
of   pure   rock   and   dark   dreams   not    given    to    trees    in    whose 
brandies  birds  nest  and  sing:    then  pines  and  oak-scrub;   among 
these    presently    little   sun-soaked    hay-helds    whose    harvest,    in 
pointed  cocks,  stood  out  oddly  upon  the  snow.     Then  villages 
or  colonies  or  farmlet>  of  dwelling..,  half  underground,  and  with 
the  square,  open  cave-like  front  which  marks  all  b:astern  dwell- 
in<>-s-    fku-roofed.  of  course,  and  choked  and  huddled  round  with 
straw-stacks  and  niound- of  u  inter  fodder.     1  was  nnich  tempted 
to  stop  and  explore  one  of  these  little  places  where  the  f(K)t-S()le 
of  its  occupants  ne\er  knows  what  it  is  io  stand  upon  the  flat 
('■round    save  wlien  in(l<H)rs  on  the  trodden  earth  (»f  the  humble 

li\  ing  room. 

With  a  swoof)  almoM  hawk-like  in  its  sheerne^s  and  its  sud- 
denness,  we  droj)  ini«'  the   couMderahle   settlement   of  Anamir, 

bcM-le  a  nver  uliicli  1^  ean  mh-  Hie  -rev  -laeier  uaier  l^  the 
sontli.  Here  we  are  to  hnrlMui!"  i<  t  ine  niLrlu,  and  <ui]y  two  gen- 
era!  cluunbers.  one  for  men  and  one  !<  t  wt.mern  are  at  the  dis- 
pr, sal  i)\  tra\-ellers,  for  n  1-  'MU'  « >t  the  ^nailer  station-,  1  he  food 
is  in  that  particular  tranMin-n  -lage  between  arcliaism  half-dis- 
, lamed  aral  enili-ation  hah"  c*.an|>reliended,  uhu-li  1-  the  nioM  try- 
ing of  anv;  but  again  the  wine  of  the  conntrv  and  it-  bread  give 
sustenance  to  travellers  who  have  ne\er  been  in  slavery  to  tables 

il'liotc. 

In  the  morning  a  Caucasian  gentleman  with  white  hair  and 
a  self-possession  princes  might  envy,  came  and  poured  water  upon 


our  hands  and  face  from  a  jug,  while  we  juggled  with  sponge  and 
soap  in  a  vain  eftort  after  even  precarious  cleanliness.  In  this 
matter  we  agreed  that  they  do  things  handsomely  in  Ananur. 
None  of  us  had  ever  been  washed  by  a  Circassian  prince  in  full 
uniform  before.  (1  think  1  am  right  in  describing  him  as  a  prince; 
you  are  a  prince  in  the  Caucasus  if  you  possess  four  sheep,  so 
Russians  say,  jokingly,  and  1  cannot  believe  that  our  friend  had 


iiuw  the  Geurgian  Ruad  Comes  Down  at  Mleti. 

a  dcece  less.)  We  wandered  up  to  the  strange  little  castle:  It 
dates  from  the  hfteenth  century,  and  the  shells  of  its  square  and 
tapering  towers  frame  and  crumble  round  a  church  of  later  date. 
Nothing  about  this  church,  save  some  half-obliterated  frescos  and 
the  arabescjues  lettered  beside  its  door,  interested  us,  but  in  the 
river,  a  special  breed  of  bull-trout  mocks  the  prowess  of  the  pass- 
ing fisherman,  and  there  w^ere  smooth  places  beside  the  tails  of 


200 


ALL     IHL    RUSSIAS 


water  and  sudden-coniin-  "  racc^  "  m  the  hollows  of  hanks  where 
1  should  have  deliohted  to  see  the  dry-ihes  of  a  certain  Liheral 
statesman  friend  allinmL;!}    tloatnii^-. 

That  day  we  made  the  second  ascent  of  a  smaller  pass,  this 
time  always  among  cultivated  slopes  where  the  wheat  was  al- 
ready sprouting,  the  big,  blue-grey  buffaloes  plouglnng.  and  the 
little  tlat-roofed  houses,  all  scrai)ed  out  of  the  hill-sides,  com- 
fortably fronting  the  southern  sun.     X'isiting  some  of  them,  we 
found  the  cave-dwellers  to  be  a  handsome  race  huleed;    the  men 
tall,  strong,  and  martial,  bearded  and  bronzed  and  covered  with 
weapons;    the  women  gay  in  bright  colors  of  blue  and  red  and 
crimson,  holding  up  babies  wl>ose  small  heads  were  covered  with 
henna-tinted  hair.    Cocks,  hens,  cats,  dogs,  and  a  few  little  tluffy 
bufYalo-calves  all  clustered  in  the  shelter  of  these  house-fronts, 
and  on  the  roof  huge,  oval  baskets  of  n.iaize-cobs  shone  golden, 
very  often  with  the  owner  seated  smoking  beside  his  store  of 

winter  provender. 

At  Dushet  we  spent  some  time  trying  to  get  into  the  castle 
of  Prince  Tschliaief,  which  stood  upon  the  liill,  white,  castellated, 
looking  proudly  across  the  valley  at  the  little  town  sxith  its  grim, 
nlain,  red  boxes  of  new  Russian  barracks.  In  point  of  api)ear- 
ance,  the  Prince's  palace,  which  was  also  employed  as  a  Police 
Station,  was  easily  first  in  its  expression  of  martial  capability. 
Dushet  is  charmingly  situated,  and  as  it  is  within  ea<y  reach  of 
the  cosmopolitan  i)leasures  of  Titlis,  it  is  the  place  1  should 
recommend  for  a  prolongc.l  -pring  or  autumn  stay  on  the  Geor- 
gian Ivoad. 

Ancient  histnrv  pervade^  the  Cauca-iis.  and  tlie  ]a:^t  town  on 
tlie  road  is  a  -iran-e  link  lietuoen  pa^t  and  \^Vl^-i■v\l.  '1  hi<  is 
Mt-khet,  the  ancicul  capnal  mJ   (n-.>r-ia.     Tlic  ran-  m  which  it 

l,^.|^)„<_.«, — or  rather  belonged hclicvr^  it   Im  be  tlu;  ijldc.st  town 

in  the  world,  founded  by  Xoah'.s  great^grcat -great  grandson, 
while  even  sober  historians  recognise  it  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century.     Here  lived  and  reigned  all  the  'IVars  of  Geor- 


THE    GLORGLAN    ROAD 


20I 


tjia:  hither  came  the  Wandals  of  l^amerlane  and  rased  the  cathe- 
(Irak  l)ut  Tsar  /vlexander  L  of  Georgia  rebuilt  it.  and  under  its 
aisles  lie  CJeorgia's  rulers  and  wise  men.  The  cathedral  itself 
was  built  originallv  in  ;^2F^  a.d.,  over  the  spot  where  Christ's 
seamless  robe,  brought  from  Golgotha  either  by  a  Jew  or  by 
the  Centurion  Longinus — the  legends  differ — and  given  by 
him  to  his  sister  Sidonia,  was  found.  She  wrapped  it  around 
her,  fell  dead,  and  as  it  could  not  l)e  detached  from  her  body, 
she  was  buried  in  it,  and  until  it  was  carried  off  to  the  Cathe- 
dral of  the  Assumption  at  ^Moscow,  a  holy  oil  exuded  from 
the  verv  stones  above  the  precious  relic.  Such  was  old 
]\ltskhet.  To-day  it  is  a  railway  station  on  the  line  from 
P)atum  to  Baku,  the  point  where  the  military  road  meets  the 
military  railway — a  plain  village,  l)ut  ennobled  by  the  ruins 
of  palaces  and  churches  telling  of  the  wonders  of  the  days 
when  Tsars  lived  here,  before  the  proud  name  went   north. 


Shoeing  an  Ox  in  the  Caiu  asus. 


.*  .,- 


_,  .,j>.^.i 


>«.Um«**^  *iw  A^  A 


«•*«»,*>••  •»   f>m  ■4r^*l»»  f*^  «v^#»  ■**^  *«»  ^'*»  **"   fc       **.  •*   *-•  * 


*-- ^     »^-'«    - 


CHAPTKR    XIV 
TIFLIS    OF     THE    CROSS-ROADS 

THE  German  philologist,  rrofessor  Brui^sch,  has  calculated 
that  sexenty  lani^uai^es  are  si)okcii  in  Titlis.  That  simple 
statement,  pondered  loni;"  enoui;h.  mii^ht  almost  stiflice  to  de- 
scribe the  citw  It  is  the  modern  iKihel.  the  meetini^-place  of 
Euro|)e  and  Asia,  the  cross-roads  of  the  great  route>  north  and 
south,  and  east  and  we^i.  the  focus  of  a  scoi'c  of  keenly  trading- 
peoples,  the  conglomerate  deposit  of  two  thousand  }ears  of  l)n>y 
historw  ( )\er  thi^  cc^mplication  Ru^^ia  rule<  ea.sil}'  and  well.  It 
is  an  excellent  example  of  ]\n\\  ^-he  earner  ci\ili>ation  to  I'.a-tern 
peoj)les. 

I'Aternallw  half  <»f  Tit]!^  is  a  little  Pari^.  or  a  prettiiM-  F-iicha- 
rest.  A  mass  of  im  rooi>,  painicil  iii  pale  green  and  Indian  red, 
makes  a  plea-nnt  colc^nr  ini|^)rcs-!on  a<  \  rui  ar^prnach  the  citv 
from  tlie  monntam-,  liiii  t-i  ^^^^  n  n-.  n^  rca.l  aii<l  rcniarkai'le 
]!ict ure-^iinene-^,  a-  -iii'Wii  m  i]]\-  iiln-iranon.  n  nn,i-i  iic  x'icwed 
from  the  remani-  i »!  fiu/  . 'M  i<Mirt;ss,  or  ilie 
l,)eside  U.  at  Uie  other  end  *'!   tiu;  t<f\\n.      h   he 


'taiiUMi    i  lart  Irn 


tile    I  H  il't  'HI    *  if 


U  H 


a  brown,  treelos  \  alley,  iietween  -teip  nill-,  <  ui  euher 
the  river  Knra.  This  may  not  sound  \er)-  atiraciive,  Laii  lliere 
is  an  abruptness  aboiu  the  cnrtnur-  and  a  serpentine  twi-t  a])otit 
tlie  river  that  make  it  one  i^i  tlie  most  strikingly  placed  towns  I 
know.  In  summer,  as  might  be  guessed  fre)ni  its  position  and 
from  the  additional  fact  that  it  ha>  a  phenomenally  small  rain- 
fall. 1  itlis  is  stithng  and  intolerably  hot,  but  in  winter  the  same 
conchtions  render  it  a  delightful  residence,  {perfectly  sheltered 
from   the   cold   winds   that    sweep   from   the   mountains   and   the 


TIFLIS    OF    THE    CROSS-ROADS  203 

plam    to    the   southeast,   and   by   its   dry   atmosphere   admirably 
suited  to  people  with  weak  lungs. 

It  is  a  place  of  great  importance  to  modern  Russia.  It  forms, 
to  begin  with,  the  end  of  the  military  road  across  the  Caucasus, 
which,  though  the  railway  now^  goes  round  the  eastern  coast 
to  Baku,  is  still  the  quickest  way  to  Europe,  and  all  the  mails 
come  over  it  by  fast  coach.  It  is  midway  between  Baku  and 
Batum;    that  is,  between  the  Caspian  and  the  Black   Sea,  be- 


Titlis. 

tween  Europe  and  A<ia  when  you  go  east  and  west,  as  well  as 
when  you  go  north  and  south.  1die  railway  is  now  open  to  Kars, 
that  frontier  fortress  whicli.  not  long  ago  the  Russian  objective, 
wdl  some  day  be  her  base  for  an  advance  into  Armenia  and  far 
beyond.  Tiflis.  in  fact,  is  thinking  of  the  future,  as  vou  are 
reminded  when  you  go  to  the  topographical  departiuent  of  the 
General  StafT  to  buy  the  magnificent  maps  they  sell,  and  see  a 
dozen  of^cers  working  busilv  over  their  drawino-d^oards. 


2()2 


.w  »"» .\n*  1 


r.  ■,-•.  *i^  (.^  »  •  > 


'  V  -  >.r'k>llu«W*«i*\V,*nV.«/tf^*~tw1«v*«i  - 


204 


ALL     I  III:    KUSSLAS 


And  Russia  has  (k'vck)])C(l  licr  Caucasian  ca|)ital  in  a  man- 
ner worthy  of  its  iniportiuicc.  In  the  modern  town  the  streets 
are  wide  and  paved  and  hghted  by  electricity,  the  shops  are 
hu-i;e  and  handsome,  there  is  a  pnhhc  L;arden  with  winding;-  walks 
and  tine  trees,  excellent  tramways  run  in  all  directions,  and  the 
pul)lic  carriages,  leather-upholstered  and  rubber-tyred,  are  far 
superior  to  those  of  St.  Petersburg  or  Moscow — in  fact,  the 
best  1  have  seen  anywhere.  The  otiicial  buildings  are  numerous 
and  imposing — Russia  always  takes  care  of  this.  The  cathedral 
is  a  magnificent  edifice,  the  Governor-General's  pakice  dignified 
without  and  splendid  w^ithin,  there  is  a  new  and  elaborate  opera- 
house,  and  of  course  a  number  of  military  buildings.  The  mu- 
seum is  extremely  interesting  for  its  collections  of  all  the  animals 
and  birds  of  the  Caucasus,  all  the  geological  products,  and  a 
fascinating  series  of  figures  and  domestic  implements  illustrating" 
the  ethnology  of  all  the  local  races.  While  1  was  there  an  agri- 
cultural exhibition  was  held,  and  the  (piality  and  variety  of  prod- 
ucts shown  were  astonishing.  Some  of  the  vegetables  were 
so  remarkal)le  that  1  wrote  and  asked  for  seeds,  which  were 
sent  ])romptly  by  otiicial  post  and  aic  now  germinating  under 
the  sur|)rised  eyes  of  a  Ilam|)shire  gardener.  In  matters  like 
this,  let  me  remark  once  for  all,  the  Russian  authorities  are 
courtes}-  itseh'  to  foreigners  who  a])proac]i  them  coin-teoUhly  and 
are  genuinely  interested  in  wli:a  they  are  doing.  iMuallw  the 
1  bjtel  (le  L(,in(lre>  i<  tiic  hr^l  rcallx'  ci\ili-^cd  and  conitorlable 
hotel  T  have  found  m  !\u<<ia-— and  thi^  i-  in  A-ia'  !  dwell  ujion 
these  matters  because  tlie  -iriking  fad  about  '\'\\]\^  \-  that  Rus- 
sian rule  has  made  a  liaiKbcnie.  ck'an.  sale,  cixilisod.  and  nicrry 
little  town  out  of  a  jumble  oi  dirty,  jarring  luistern  races,  out>ide 
her  European  frontier,  and  far  from  anywhere. 

But  one  does  not  go  to  Asia  to  see  luvrope,  and  Rostom.  the 
guide,  in  Circassian  costume,  with  long  poniard  and  war-medal, 
haunts  the  hall  of  the  hotel.  1\)  test  the  (ierman  philologist,  I 
ask  him  how  many  languages  he  speaks.     He  does  not  remember, 


f  f«  ^-r    --.>*,•*    -v     «•      «     *, 


TIFLIS    OF   THE    CROSS-ROADS 


205 


but  proceeds  to  count  them  upon  his  fingers.  Russian,  :Mingrel- 
ian— his  native  tongue— Georgian,  Armenian,  Persian,  Lesghian, 
Gruznian — I  can't  remember  them,  and  I  don't  know  how  to 
spell  them,  but  it  is  an  extraordinary  list.  And  he  needs  them 
all  in  an  hour's  stroll  through  the  bazaar.  Ten  minutes  in  a 
tramway   from   the   hotel   door  transports  you   into  a  piece   of 


Titlis  and  ihe  Ruins  of  the  Citadel. 

Bao-hdad  or  Tehran,  and  one  of  the  very  few  l^astern  bazaars  I 
have  seen  which  has  not  its  eye  fixed,  so  to  speak,  upon  the 
Western  purchaser.  A  few  things  in  the  silversmiths'  shops  are 
for  the  foreigner,  but  otherwise,  if  you  go  there,  you  go  as  the 
native  goes,  you  see  what  the  native  sees,  you  haggle  as  the 
native  haggles,  and  you  get  what  the  native  gets.  This  is  re- 
freshincr  wdien  one  remembers  the  bazaar  in  Cairo,  for  instance, 


2o6 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


TIFLIS    OF    THK    CROSS-ROADS 


207 


where  the  tourist  buys  with  solemn  precautions  and  secret  Hee 
things  si)eciany  made  for  him  in  I>irmino-ham  or  Germany,  which 
an  Oriental  passes  with  a  contemptuous  shrug. 

If  one  half  of  Tillis  is  like   lun'opc,  the  other  half  is  purely 
Oriental.      Narrow,   steep,   ill-paved   streets;    mysterious  houses 
hiding  the  life  within  behind  closed  doors  and  shuttered  win- 
dows;   the  merchant  sitting  among  his  wares — the  silversmiths 
m  one  street,  the  arms-maker>  in  another,   the  shoemakers,  the 
carpet-dealers,  the  fruit-sellers,   the  perfume-venders,  eacli   trade 
in  its  own  (juarter.     And  what  things  to  buy,  if  one  has  monev 
and  time — the  two  ecpially  essential  components  of  an   Eastern 
bargain!     Through  this  low  door-way  and  behind  this  connnon- 
place  shop  is  a  dark  warehouse  piled  high  with  cari)et-  in  inoun- 
tamous    proUision.      Here   is   e\ery    fraud    read}-    for   the    unwary 
or  unknowing  purchaser,  but  here.  abo.  if  yonr  e\e  i-  Miarp  aixl 
your  tr-iigue  >mooth  and  your  experience  truMwonlp,    an.l   \  our 
tune  and  patience  witlmin   liniii-.  |.  a  htanvide  ir. -ni  ihe  palaee  of 
one  of  i]\c  old    Khan 
bv ;    the 


>l    Auhni;! 


assals  of    1  'rrna   ni   innc 


t> 


« uie 


■^  <i  ^ 


hkei!   car|>cl  Hum    b-.iah: 


m.   ni 


the  golden  davs  of 


Miili     \hh-a<,   two   hundred   years   old,   priceless;    thai    rug   was 
wo\en  hx    !  ekke  gnls  in  the  tent  of  nomad   kuikomans,  a  pat- 
tern ne\er  copied  init  preserved  in  memory  from  the  times  of 
Tamerlane;  this  drugget  issued  long  ago  from  the  loom  of  Kurd- 
ish  women  of  Erivan;    the  roll  of  rainbow-coloured  silk  came 
^]nxvW  to  jiq-lit.  like  a  dragon-fly  above  a  reekin-  i-.m  1.  in  a  mud 
hovel  of  the  i.^anrr  iMwn  .  =1  ilukhara.  heriest  iioi-bed  of  Akn-nl- 
inan    tanatieiMii.      The   merolian!    will    .Imw    vnu,    too.   Inrquoises 
-~-han.hiii.  or  them,  all  Mnal!  <  u"  mi  tlu-   wortiile-  greeiiiMi  line. 
Many  tirne.^  \  on  a^k  hmi  it  he  ha^  iimi  higger  tunpioiscs  and  he 
sliakes  his  jiead.     At   the  l.aek  of  In',  uon  strong-box.   wrapped 
in  a  dozen  crumpled   paper>.   lie  ha>  a   great   one.  of  thai    mar- 
vellous and  indescribable  blue  which   nature   has  prodnce.l   only 
in  this  stone.     Will  much  i)er>uasion  wheedle  it  iiuo  sight   tor  a 
moment,  or  much  money  secure  its  possession  forever?     Alavbe, 


but  T  have  my  doubts,  and  thev  are  based  upon  the  unchano-ino- 
truth  that  at  last,betweeii  East  and  \\>st,  pride  of  race  is  stronger 
than  greed  of  gold.  To  console  you,  however,  for  the  unattain- 
able azure,  you  may  find  and  carry  off  a  blue  scimetar  from 
Daghestan,  a  wrought-iron  staff  surmounted  by  an  ox-head  with 
which  some  old  Persian 
officer  has  led  his  men  to 
battle,  a  Georgian  pistol 
inlaid  with  silver  iiicllo 
work,  and  a  choice  bit  of 
gold-encrusted  ivorv  from 
Kazi-I\umyk. 

lUit    Tillis,    this    '*  ])re- 
cipitate   of   hi>tor\-,'"   these 
cross-roads    between     J{u- 
roi)e     and     Asia,     excites 
^•onr  wnnrlcr  and  enchains 
your     recollectiem     chieli\-    \ 
for    its    liuman    ronrr]nnic- 
rate.      Most  of  trie   speak 
ers    of    its    nianv    tongues 
have  their  distinctive  cos- 
tume,    and     indeed     then 
own    well  -  ninrked     faces, 
Tliere  is  no  mistaking  tlie 
Tatars    ^vit]:    then"   hat^   in 
the    shajie    of    a    truncated 
cone,  the  afjinline  feat  tired 
Lesginans.  the  swarth}    Persians  with   their  long-pointed  hats 
of  astrakhan  ftir,  the  Armenians  with  their  llat  caps,  the  Turko- 
mans   in    huge    sliagg\-    hats    of    sheepskin,    the    \\'urtem])crg- 
ers   of   the   German   colony   in    the  old   Swabian   costume,    and 
most   marked  of  all,   the   Gecjrgians   in   the   tchcrkcss,   with   the 
kJiacir.  the  row  of  cartridge  cases,  across  the  breast.     The  native 


A   Bit  r.f  Old  Tifi!'^. 


2o8 


ALL    THL    RUSSIAS 


i^-cntleman,  an  officer  of  liii;li  rank  and  loni^-  service  in  war,  who 
strides  into  the  hotel  (Hnini;-room  in  his  uniform  of  chestnut  and 
In(Han  red,  jini^ding-  with  small-arms  and  hunq-  with  medals  even 
as  a  Zulu  is  strung  with  cowries,  is  certainlv  one  of  the  most 


A  Caucasian  Type— Rostom  the  Guide. 


slrikI^i^  ii^urc^  1  h:ivc  ever  -een,  Tn  [;!</!,  !  do  iif,f  remember 
to  ha\c  heeii  in  tlu'  M)CKi\'  i^\  ^^^  many  di-im-iii^hcd -1<  m,  .km--  peo- 
ple in  m\-  life  heforc;  a  -ivnip  ,  .|  piaiices  of  thr  l.lond.  aml)a-^a- 
dors,  and  commandcr-^aii  ohic!   would  have  evervtliui"    tu  learn 


TIFLIS    OF    THE    CROSS-ROADS 


209 


from  theiu  in  the  matter  of  deportment.  Xo  matter  who  they 
may  be — the  Smiths  and  Joneses,  possibly,  of  Georgia  and 
Daghestan — their  manners  and  their  clothes  hit  off  the  choicest 
expressions  of  dignity  and  distinction.  That  full-skirted  woollen 
coat,  flying  round  the  fme  riding-boots,  and  hiding  trousers  of 
carmine  silk;  that  tight-fitting  body-part,  open  at  the  breast  to 
show  a  shirt  of  richest  cream-colour,  hooked  smartly  over  the 
ribs  and  narrowly  girdled  at  the  waist  by  a  belt  of  chased  metal, 
worn  \-ery  tight,  from  which  hang  silver-worked  poniard,  sabre, 
pistol-holster  and  otlier  strange  fittings,  combine  to  form  a  cos- 
tume of  intinite  spirit,  to  wliich  the  row  of  cartridges.  >ewn  on 
a  cunning  >laiu  on  each  side  of  the  breast,  are  a  splendid  Imi-h, 
ex'cn  though  tlio  cartridges  are  ])Ul  (hmim\-  bits  ul  wood,  wnii 
gold  or  silver  liearl'^.  Added  to  all  thi-.  tiie  port  of  the  liead  in 
its  black  sheepskin  hat,  and  the  whole  martial  bearing,  make 
every  man  a  field-marshal  aial  ilic  hero  of  a  hundred  fights — to 
look  at. 

Are  the  women  of  Georgia  as  beautiful  as  we  have  ahvays 
been  told?  When  they  become  matrons,  which  is  at  an  early  age, 
they  are  too  stout  and  broad  in  the  beam  for  beauty,  but  in  their 
youth,  I  should  judge  from  glimpses  at  windows  and  passing 
faces,  there  may  well  be  extraordinary  loveliness  among  them — 
the  loveliness  of  perfectly  chiselled  features  true  to  the  racial 
type,  large  calm  dark  eyes,  firm,  full  mouth,  alabaster  skin,  in- 
digo-black hair — the  precise  antithesis  of  the  piquancy  of  irregu- 
lar features  and  nervous  temperament  which  generally  passes  for 
beauty  among  ourselves.     Tliese  are  women,  you  feel,  whose  lips 


would  uliisjier  pa^^^^ioiKite  love  esr.  if  time<  allowed,  .^uig  high 
the  song  thai  -end<  their  men  to  battle — whewe  fhigers  would 
grasp  the  dagger  or  lall  lii^hih  aero---  the  -trnigs  ul  liie  hue.  wiih 
equal  aptness.  Dagger  and  war-song,  however,  are  out  01  date 
in  the  (Caucasus  to-day. 

One  of  the  (juaintest  sights  (^f  the  whole  l)azaar  i-  its  wine. 
The  district  of  Kakhetia,  not  far  from  here,  produces  red  and 


-2o8 


ALL   THi;    RUSSLIS 


TIFLLS    OK    THE    CROSS-ROADS 


209 


i;x'ntleman.  an  officer  of  Iii^li  rank  and  l(>n<4"  service  in  war.  who 
strides  into  the  h(itel  (hnin^-rooni  in  his  uniform  of  chestnut  and 
Inchan  rech  jini;Hn<j^  witli  sinah-arnis  and  huni^  with  medals  even 
as  a  Zuhi  is  strun<^^  with  cowries,  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 


A  Caucasian    lype— H(,5iuin  tiic  Guide. 


strikiiii'^  n.. 


;urc<  I  Ikivv  (;\'cr  -ceii,  Tii  f;ici,  1  d.  *  not  ri'iDcinhcr 
to  have  been  ni  the  -uciel)  ul  m^  !na!!\-  di-im- uidicd  d.  >Mkiri-  pco- 
pk;  HI  in\-  lue  before:  a  -rMHj,  ,.[  jinnee-  of  thc^  hlnod.  anilia-se- 
dors,  and  conmiander.- m  chici    would   have  everythnig   lu  learn 


from  them  in  the  matter  of  deportment.  Xo  matter  who  they 
may  he — the  Smiths  and  Joneses,  possibly,  of  Georgia  and 
Daghestan — their  manners  and  their  clothes  hit  off  the  choicest 
expressions  of  dignity  and  distinction.  That  full-skirted  woollen 
coat,  flying  round  the  hue  riding-boots,  and  hiding  trousers  of 
carmine  silk;  that  tight-htting  body-part,  open  at  the  breast  to 
show  a  shirt  of  richot  cream-colour,  hooked  smartly  o\er  the 
ribs  and  narrowly  c^irdled  at  the  waist  l)v  a  belt  of  chased  metal, 
worn  ver_\-  tight,  from  which  hang  sil\-er-worked  poniard,  sabre, 
pi-toldiolster  and  other  strange  httings,  combine  to  form  a  co- 
tume  ul  inrmite  spirit,  to  whicli  tlu^  row  of  cartridges,  sewn  on 
a  cunning  ^lant  on  each  ^ide  of  tlie  ])reast,  are  a  splendid  tini^li. 
e\ei]  though  the  cartridges  are  but  dummy  ])its  of  wood,  witii 
gold  ()!■  -iiWT  head-.  Added  to  all  \h\>,  the  |)in-t  of  the  liead  m 
its  black   -hrfji-kni   iiat,  aiid   ilie   wii.tii-   martial   bearmg,   make 

e\rr\-  nian  a  lieid inar-lial  and  the  hero  uf  a  hundred  light- — to 

look  at. 

Are  the  women  of  Georgia  as  beautiful  as  we  have  ahvays 
been  told?  When  they  become  matrons,  \\  Inch  is  at  an  early  age, 
they  are  too  stout  and  broad  in  the  beam  for  beauty,  but  in  their 
youth,  I  should  judge  from  glimpses  at  windows  and  passing 
faces,  there  may  well  be  extraordinary  loveliness  among  them — 
the  loveliness  of  perfectly  chiselled  features  true  to  the  racial 
type,  large  calm  dark  eyes,  firm,  full  mouth,  alabaster  skin,  in- 
digo-black hair — the  precise  antithesis  of  the  piquancy  of  irregu- 
lar features  and  nervous  temperament  which  generally  passes  for 
beauty  among  ourselves.     These  are  w^omen,  you  feel,  whose  lips 


WMUhi    wm-pcr  I 
tiU;   -(!n<j"   that 


)assionate  love  or.  if  time-  allowed,  sing  high 
■  end-  their  men  to  battle — vvho^e  linger^  would 
gra-p  tlie  dagger  or  fall  lightly  aero--  the  string-  oi  tiic  lute,  with 
ecfual  aptness.  Dagger  and  war-song,  however,  arc  out  of  date 
in  the  Gaucasus  to-day. 

One  of  the  (piaintest  sights  of  the  whole  bazaar  i-  its  wine. 
The  district  of  Kakhetia,  not  far  from  here,  produces  red  and 


2  10 


ALL     ILir:    RLSSL-IS 


TIFLIS    OF    THL    CROSS-ROADS 


2i  1 


white  wine,  and  a  wine  neither  red  nor  wliite,  hnt  of  the  eolour 
of  tawny  port  and  the  taste  of  hrowi]  shcrr\.  This  is  for  the 
well-to-do;  the  i)eo])le's  wine,  costing-  nieredi])l\-  little,  is  thin  and 
aeid,  but  quite  pure.  Of  eourse  1  have  seen  in  many  Eastern 
countries  wine-skins  and  water-skins,  but  a  whole  ox  tilled  with 
wine  took  nie  by  surprise.  There  he  lay  at  the  diikhan  door,  on 
his  back,  his  feet  and  head  cut  off  and  the  holes  tied  up,  bloated, 
enormous.     You  call  for  a  glass  and  the  lace  is  loosed  from  his 


Titlis—Wint'-skin^  and  th.^  Wine-sh'ip, 

fnrck\q-  and  out  poiir<  tlu'  wiiic.  The  winr-hop  ii-df  i^  bclnw  the 
street,  and  ])elow  it  i>  a  dee|)er  collar  where  a  inatcli  >li()w>  row 
upon  row  of  these  truncated  wine -filled  l)eeve-.  a  Ixivine  cata- 
comb. In  the  diikluui  nearer  the  Persian  liazaar  1  spt-iit  some  rare 
hours,  eatinir  black  l)rea{l,  smoking-  tobacco  from  Isfahan,  drink- 
ing the  slender  vintage  from  the  foreleg  of  the  bnrdyuku  and 
listening  to  thrilling  tales  of  Shamyl  from  one  who  had  fought 
against  him  for  ten  years. 


Anotlier  experience  of  Tiths  is  the  bath.  It  is  a  luxurious, 
modern,  tile-fronted  building  in  the  heart  of  the  Armenian  ba- 
zaar, belonging  to  a  prince  whose  name  escapes  me.     Abundant 


Tfie  Shanipi  m  .er  <  d  Tiflis, 

springs  of  water  strongly  impregnated  with  sulphuretted  hydro- 
gen supply  it,  and  in  its  vaulted  chambers,  far  below  the  street, 
there  is  no  sound  but  the  splash  of  the  fountain  and  the  rolling 
echo  of  one's  own  voice.  The  masseur,  however,  distinguishes 
the  bath  of  Tiflis.  He  is  a  Persian,  speaking  but  a  word  or 
two  of  Russian      His  head  is  shaved,  round  lii-  wnist  a  rag  is 


iwi^ted,  and  hib  leel  are   u\eti  oraiiLre.      l-'i 


r-t   lie   VIM): 


1 . 1 


ke 


the  s]i;ini|)0()t>r  nf  Jern]\-ii  Street,  then  ^Ufldeniw  a^  \-on  iie 
Kiee  <]•  *\\  nwards  on  the  marble  slal).  he  i>  u|)Oii  \ajur  back.  Ins 
heel>  dug  into  your  >pine.  h\>  hands  grasping  your  shoulder^ 
to  mcrease  the  ])ressure,  and  slowly,  with  skilful  ap]>reciation 
of  the  lie  of  every  muscle,  his  feet  grind  up  and  down  \-our 
back — they  encircle  \imv  neck — the}'  are  on  \'our  head!  ddien 
he  \atdts  lightlv  off,  and  in  a  moment,  from  a  linen  bau'  tilled 
with  soap,  he  has  squeezed  clouds  of  perfumed  l)td)bles,  and 
you  are  hidden  in  them  from  head  to  feet,  as  completely  as 
if  von  had  fallen  into  a  snow-drift. 


O   T  O 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


So  far,  all  is  tolerahle,  if  rather  startling-,  hut  whcti,  wrapped 
in  linen  atid  heturhanned,  \()u  call  for  a  cigarette  and  he  hrini^s 
one,  lic^hts  it  hetween  hi^  own  lips  and  would  |)ut  it  hetween 
yours,  the  |)rejudices  of  the  West  ari^e.  and  you  repulse  the 
well-meant  intention  of  that  orange-footed  (  )rienta!.  Idie  hath 
costs  you  six  shillui^>,  hut  cleanlmess  is  aK\a\s  a  luxui'x-  in  the 
East. 


h    wiii  (jccur  t«»  !nan\'  reader^,  no  d^nht.   to  n 
pohlira!  enndili'U!  i»f'  liiese  s!rani»-elv  rmn    '     ' 


\v 


lat   In  the 


>. 


i  1  an«i  once  vig"orons 


nationahliei,  and  huw  ihc\  arr  aikTtcti  tuw; 


ivn  Uii'iv 


vu  ita'i,. 


A   Olui   .it    Ilk    Vv  liic-iiiup. 


Tn  spite  nf  tlu'  eiitlui-^ia-ni  iliev  evoke,  the  -mall  rial  !<  inajitic-  ai- 
mo>t  disappear  jxihtiealix-  in  the  fare  <>f  tlu'  eol<KN;[]  interest^  of 
the  (ireai  Powers  whudi  control  them  directlx^  or  m<hrectl\-.  and 
the  Caucasus  is  no  exception   to  this  rule.      r»ef<>re  the    Kusso- 


I 


A   WANDERING    BEGGAR,   TIFLIS. 


TIFLIS    OF    THK    CROSS-ROADS 


215 


Turkish  War  the  Georo-ians  stood  high  in  Rtissian  favotir;  they 
held  important  public  ofhccs.  and  the  social  relations  between 
them  and  Russian  othcials  were  cordial.  During  the  war  doub'ts 
arose  as  to  their  loyalty,  and  the  Armenians  took  advantage  of 
this  to  i)ush  their  own  interests.  Their  well-known  trading  and 
tinancial  i>ifts  were  of  much  use  to  the  Russians  and  verv  profit- 
able  to  themselves.  But  the  Armenians  have  shared  the  fate 
of  the  Georgians,  for  the  Armenian  troubles  in  Turkey  bred  a 
certain  amount  of  real  political  agitation,  and  evoked  fears  of  a 
oreat  deal  more,  with  the  not  unnatural  result  that  the  Russian 
authorities  now  cry  a  plague  on  both  their  houses,  and  exclude 
Georgians  and  Armenians  alike  from  office  and  intiuence.  This 
action,  again,  is  naturally  being  followed  by  a  recrudescence  of 
national  feeling,  especially  among  the  Georgians.  The  national 
costume,  once  almost  abandoned,  is  now  the  fashion;  the  national 
literature  is  being  fostered;  and  Georgian  women  talk  less  gossip 
and  more  politics. 

But  all  this  has  no  serious  significance.  Mr.  Oliver  War- 
drop,  in  his  "  Kingdom  of  Georgia"  (1888),  wrote;  *"  Should 
Russia  ever  become  involved  in  a  great  war,  Georgia  would 
undoubtedly  declare  her  independence  and  endeavour  to  seize 
the  Dariel  Road;  the  Armenians  and  Lesghians  would  also 
revolt,  each  in  their  own  way."  My  own  opinion  is  that  any 
enemy  of  Russia  that  counted  upon  this  would  be  disappointed; 
the  time  is  past  for  a  Georgian  political  nationality,  unless,  in- 
deed, Russia  should  be  already  so  hopelessly  defeated  as  to  break 
up  of  her  own  weight.  I  doubt  much  whether,  in  spite  of  their 
good  looks  and  their  martial  clothes,  the  Georgians  possess  ca- 
pacity for  anv  struggle  or  for  the  organisation  which  it  would 
necessitate  if  successful.  Sporadic  risings  there  might  be  if 
Russia  were  defeated  once  or  twice,  but  they  W'Ould  be  crushed 
without  the  slightest  difficulty,  and  the  only  chance  of  success 
they  might  have  would  be  when  Russia  was  too  exhausted  even 
to  attempt  to  put  them  down.     Moreover,  I  saw  no  reason  why 


2l6 


ALL     rilL    Rl  SSLAS 


the  (icori^ians  should  wi.sh  to  revolt,  for  ihcy  arc  not  oppressed 
in  any  way,  they  have  practically  all  the  chances  that  Russians 
themselves  enjoy,  they  are  treated  very  o-ently  as  re^i^ards  mili- 
tary service,  and  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  li  for  anv  c.mse  ivussia 
sliould  cease  to  protect  them,  some  other  I'ower  would  have  to 
do  so,  for  the)  are  now  ii]c:i])al)le  of  takin^:  ^-i^"^'  •'!  themselves 
or  standing  sword  in  hand,  a>  they  once  did,  between  lun-ope  and 
the  pressing  hordes  of  AMa.  In  a  word,  the  little  nationalities  of 
the  Caucasus  present  no  political  i)roblem. 


In  a  previous  chai)ter  I  showed  how  the  inevitable  trend  of 
Russia  is  to  the  sunrise  and  the  warm  water.     The  Caucasus  af- 
fords a  further  striking  exam|)le  of  this.     As  mav  be  seen  by  a 
glance  at   my  map   (which   >liuw.^  railways  ])]•(. jected   and   niider 
construction,   not   to  be   found,    1   bei.eve,   elsewhere),    Russia   is 
stretching  out  her  arm  rapidly  to  the  south,  toward   Persia  and 
its  warm  and  conunercial  gulf  which  leads  straight  to  India  and 
the  East,  m  the  shape  of  roads  and  railways.     Alreadv  a  railway 
runs  from  Tiths  to  Kars.  and  several  other  schemes  are  on  foot 
for  further  facilities  of  transport  in  the  same  direction.     A  railway 
is  already  begun,  and  will  be  finished  in  three  or  four  years,  from 
Karakles,  l)elow  Alexandropol,  down  the  \alley  of  the  Arpa-chai 
to  the  valley  of  the  Aras  (Araxes),  then  l)y  the  side  of  the  Aras 
to  Erivan.  and  on  to  Xakhitchexan  and  Julfa  on  tlie  Russo-Per- 
sian  frontier.     Another  railway  is  under  survey  and  considera- 
tion from  I>aku  to  Astara  and  Tabriz,  with  an  alternatixe  scheme 
from  ^An■lach,  on  the  present  line,  through  jebrail  to  Tabriz.     An 
important  military  road,  about   which   not   much  is   heard,   runs 
from  Patum  to  Artxin,  thence  t(,.  Ardanautch.  thence  to  Ar<lahan. 
thence  to   Kars.      It  is  metalled  from    Patum   to  Artvin,  and  is 
l)eing  widened  from  Artvin  to  Ardanautch.     It  has  been  metalled 
and  in   use   for  some  time  from   Ardahan   to    Kars.      I*lans  and 
performances  like  these,  at  a  time  when  money  is  scarce  in  Russia, 


;:# 


c 
o 


(/5  = 

<       ^ 

u     8 


UJ 


<  ^ 


X 


*Vv 


2l6 


ALL    IHL    RUSSLAS 


the  Gcoro-iaiis  should  wish  to  rcxoli,  for  ihe>  arc  not  oppressecT 
in  any  way,  they  have  practically  all  the  chances  that  Russians 
themselves  enjoy,  they  are  treated  very  oemly  as  regards  mili- 
tary service,  and  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  if  for  any  cause  Russia 
should  cease  to  protect  them,  some  other  Rower  would  have  to 
do  so,  for  tlie>-  are  now  mcapahle  of  taking-  care  of  themselves 
or  standini,^  sword  in  hand,  as  they  once  did,  between  lun'ope  and 
the  pressino^  hordes  of  Asia.  In  a  word,  the  little  iiaiiunalities  of 
the  C'aucasus  i)resent  no  j)olitical  ])rol)lein. 


Li  a  previous  chapter  I   showed  how  the  inevitable  trend  of 
RtisMa  is  to  the  sunrise  and  tlie  warm  water.     The  Caticasus  af- 
fords a  further  striking  example  of  tins.     As  mav  be  seen  by  a 
glance  at   ni\-  ma|)   (which   -li()w>   i-aih\ays  jirojected   and   under 
construction,   not    to   l)e   found.    1    believe,   elsewhere).    Russia    is 
stretching  out  Iter  arm  rapidly  to  the  soutli.  toward   Persia  and 
Its  warm  and  commercial  gulf  which  leads  straight  to  India  and 
the  luist.  111  the  sliape  of  roads  and  railways.     Already  a  railway 
runs  from  Tiilis  to  Kars.  and  se\eral  otiier  scliemes  are  on  fo(^t 
for  further  facilities  of  traii>port  in  the  same  direction.     A  railway 
IS  already  l)egun,  and  will  be  lim>he<l  in  three  or  four  vears  from 
Karakles,  below  /vlexandroi)ol,  down  the  valley  of  the  Arpa-chai 
to  the  valley  of  tlie  Aras  (Araxe>).  then  by  the  side  of  the  .\ras 
to  hj-i\an,  and  on  to  Xaklntrjiex  :»]i  and  Jnifa  on  llie  Russo-Per- 
sian  frontier.     Another  railway  is  tinder  survev   and  considera- 
tion from  Rakti  to  Astara  and  Tabriz,  with  an  alternatne  scheme 
from  \'evlach,  on  the  i)resent  line,  through  jebrail  to  Tabriz.     An 
important   militar>-  road,  about   which   not   much   i>   heard,   runs 
from  I'.atum  to  Artvin,  thence  to  Ardanantch.  tlience  to  Ardalian, 
thence  to   Kars.      It  is  metalled   from    b.atum   to  Artvin,  and   is 
l)eing  widened  from  .Artvin  to  Ardanaiitcli.     It  has  been  metalled 
and   in   use   for  some   time   from   Ardahan    to    Kar<.      ITans  and 
performances  like  these,  at  a  time  when  money  is  scarce  in  Russia, 


'ii 


< 

< 
'J 

UJ 


>- 

< 


C 

o 


3 


(J 


(A 


V. 


2l8 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


mean  onlv  one  thinir.  And  I  believe,  thoiic:h  much  secrecv  is 
observed  upon  the  matter,  that  the  raihvay  wliicli  Russia  Iiopes 
to  lay  through  Persia  to  the  sea,  the  route  of  which  has  already 
been  roughly  surveyed,  is  intended  to  start  on  the  frontier  at 
Julfa,  and  run.  via  Ahar,  to  Tabriz.  Teheran.  Isfahan,  and  Vezd, 
and  past  lUmder  Abbas  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  lUit  this  raihvay 
raises  an  international  (juestion  of  extreme  delicacy,  to  which  I 
return  later.* 

Sucli  is  the  Caucasus,  in  its  various  asj)ects — a  rapid  glance 
at  a  great  subject.  I  hope  I  have  gone  a  little  way,  at  an}'  rate, 
toward  justifying  my  remark  at  the  outset  that  it  is  j)erhaps  on 
the  whole  the  most  interesting  land  of  the  world.  It  has  been, 
as  I  said,  unaccountably  neglected,  but  I  feel  sure  in  advance  of 
the  thanks  of  any,  whether  travellers  in  search  of  new  scenes  or 
capitalists  on  the  lookout  for  new  enterprises,  who  take  my  ad- 
vice and  visit  it  for  themselves. 


•See  Chapters  XVII.  and  XXIV. 

'/'//<'  'fifties  has  just  learned,  "from  a  trustworthy  source,"  that  the  Russians 
have  decided  to  {)roceed  at  once  with  the  construction  of  a  raihvay  which  \s  ill  connect 
their  Trans-Caspian  line  with  the  I'ersian  province  of  Khorassan.  Ihis  line  will  start 
from  Askhabad  and  be  carried  to  .Meshed,  and  the  construction  is  expecteti  to  be 
pushed  forward  ra[)idly.  The  line  will  enter  Persian  territory  at  Kettechinar,  run  up 
the  Deregez  valley,  and  keej)  along  the  river  side  until  it  strikes  the  existing  main  road 
to  Meshed  between  Durbadan  and  Imamkulich.  .\  large  party  have  been  at  work 
pegging  out  the  line,  and  attached  to  this  party  have  been  M.  StroietT,  Dragoman  of 
the  .Meshed  Russian  Consulate,  and  the  Ikram-ul-Mulk,  late  Kargu/.ar  of  Kuchan. 
Difficulties  were  met  with  in  passing  through  villages,  but  it  is  said  that  these  have 
been  arranged,  and  the  Ikram-ul-Mulk  has  been  given  12.000  roubles  as  a  present. 
It  is  understood  in  Askhabad  that  the  money  for  the  railway  has  been  sanctioned  and 
is  ready,  and  that  the  Russian  Ikmk  will  open  a  branch  almost  immediately  in  Meshe  1 
to  assist  the  financing  of  the  works.  A  gentlenKin  from  St.  Petersburg  was  named 
manager  of  the  bank  in  Meshed,  another  official  was  to  come  from  Teheran,  and  .Mi 
Askar  Khan,  the  interpreter  of  the  State  I'.ank,  .\skhabad.  was  also  under  ()rder^  to 
proceed  to  Meshed.  "There  is,"  the  Tinu-s  adds,  "a  feeling  of  great  uneasiness 
amongst  the  official  classes  in  Meshed,  as  it  is  impossible  to  predict  what  the  advent 
of  this  railway  means."  It  means  that  Russia  is  hurrving  uixm  Iht  "historic 
mission"  in  view  of  (iermany's  haste  upon  the  enterprise  described  in  Chapter  X\ll. 


CHAPTER   XV 

THE    OIL-WELLS    OF    BAKU 


FATE  has  thrown  a  good  many  strange  sights  in  my  way, 
but  1  think  the  oil-wells  of  Baku  are  as  strange  as  any. 
Directly  after  reaching  the  hotel  I  was  called  to  the  telephone, 
and  invited  bv  Mr.  Tvveedv,  at  Balakhani,  six  miles  away,  to 
spend  the  night  there  and  see  the  wells  next  day.  So  I  found 
myself,  after  dark,  driving  from  the  little  station  of  Balakhani 
to  the  headquarters  of  the  Russian  Petroleum  and  Liquid  Fuel 
Company.  The  mud  was  a  foot  deep,  there  was  no  road  in  par- 
ticular, but  the  droschky-driver  took  the  direction  which  prom- 
ised the  best  chance  of  escaping  an  upset,  and  we  rocked  about 
till  I  was  quite  resigned  to  find  myself  floundering.  The  sur- 
roundings were  positively  weird.  Every  few  yards  a  pyramidal 
structure,  huge  and  ill-defined  in  the  dark,  towered  up;  within 
each  was  machinery  hard  at  work,  and  mysterious  hangings  and 
splashings  issued;  in  boiler-houses  the  lurid  glow  and  fierce  roar 
of  petroleum  furnaces  made  night  alarming;  and  the  whole  air 
was  thick  with  the  reek  of  oil.  I  longed  for  morning  to  bring 
some  sort  of  unity  into  this  peculiar  Hades. 

With  davlight  came  not  only  unifying  knowledge,  but  also 
fascination.  To  a  man  with  imagination  the  business  of  petro- 
leum-getting must  combine  in  itself  the  things  which  delight  the 
gold  prospector,  the  sportsman,  the  surgeon,  the  mechanician 
and  the  gambler.  Like  the  prospector,  the  oil-seeker  may  look 
long  in  vain,  and  then  suddenly  run  full  tilt  against  riches. 
Like  the  sportsman,  he  may  have  the  quarry  just  within  his  reach, 

and  then  in  a  second  lose  it.    Like  the  surgeon,  he  uses  instru- 

219 


220 


ALL    IHK    RUSSLAS 


inents  to  i)crfurni  strange  and  delicate  tasks  in  ilie  dark,  guided 
only  by  a  line  sense  of  touch  and  a  knowlech^e  of  the  body  in 
vvhicli  he  is  working.  Like  the  mechanician,  he  must  ahyays  be 
inyenting  new  and  more  ingenious  tools.  Like  the  gaml)ler,  he 
ranges  headlong  oyer  rising  and  falling  yalues.  After  the  pen, 
1  think  the  oil-l)orer  would  be  my  clioice  of  implement  where- 
with to  soke  the  great  prol)lem. 

To  leaye  generalities  and  come  to  plain  facts,  this  is  in  brief 
the  stor}'  of  an  oil-well.  The  m\>tcriou.^  processes  of  nature, 
whether  animal  or  xegetable  —  prohabK  the  former  —which  pro- 
duce petroleum  in  the  bowels  of  tli.;  earth.  ]\:\\  .-  t;ikcn  jilacc  in 
an  tnuisual  degree  under  the  ea^tei'n  ^hoic  ni  the  I'anca'-ian  pe- 
ninsula, where  the   town  of   P.akn   lia,^  ri^en  -and  where,   1    max 

incidentall}-  add,  thi>  town  ha-  uicrea-ed  Iw  twent\-  fu'e  per  cent, 
in  tifteen  months,  where  hou.-c  reiii-  lia\e  douhlrd  in  the  same 
tune,  and  wliere  xou  max   ,-ee  ; 


I  :-irinL:  <  '1  camei-^  cit  !--in: 


1  a  >  e .  i 


t  ran 


i :  1 1  a  1 


xxax'  hue  under  an  ek-';t!'u'  ligiit.  This  pet rx  tji'ini 
used  to  be  leaded  b}'  the  lvUi>icni  Liux  ernmeiil  at  anomma!  riMiiai; 
no\y  it  i-  pnt  up  to  auciion.  A  i'ertain  numlKr  of  pouds  (a  poud 
I-  ihirtx  i\  11)-  1  oi  oil  is  supposed  to  be  available  for  a  certain 
ana.  and  liic  hi  1  hng  i^  b\  kopecks  (say  farthings)  per  poud  of 
that  number  1  laying  acquired  the  land,  the  concessionaire  pro- 
ceedo  to  sink  hi^  wells.  First  he  erects  the  pyramidal  wooden 
structure,  about  seventy  feet  high,  called  the  "  derrick,"  with  a 
large  grooved  wheel,  like  that  over  a  colliery  shaft,  at  its  apex. 
Tie  pu.t-  in  an  engine  and  a  winding  drnan..  and  then  the  digging 


begn 


1-  of  1  r!i,' 


n 


nportance  to  have  as  w^ide  a  shaft  as 

possible,  becau-e  liu'  xxaier  the  ^liaii  the  irreater  the  dimcu'^inn 
of  tlie  "  baler."  i  )r  eh  >ni:aieM  I  aickrt .  ns  w  iiicii  lliv  oil  is  nil  niiaiely 
brought  to  the  surface,  and  iherelore  trie  LMaailcr  tiie  xield  of 
oil  per  diem  and  the  larger  tlu;  j'trol!!.  So  iKiwa.daxx-  liie  llr-t 
tubes  of  xxrought  iron  en  winch  the  xxell  con>i-ts  max-  l)e  a-  xxide 
as  twenty-eight  or  thirty  inches.  .\  kind  of  luige  "^pade.  \yeigh- 
ing  perhaps  half  a  ton,  is  suspended  from  a  beam,  w  hicli  Ijalances 


THK    OIL-WLLLS    OF    BAKU 


221 


like  the  beam  of  a  beam-engine.     This  spade  is  fixed  to  its  shaft 
by  a  sort  of  bayonet  catch,  and  when  the  l)eam  lifts  the  whole 
api)aratus  a  man  standing  over  the  well  gives  it  a  half  turn,  and 
the  spade  falls  two  feet,  striking  the  ground  a  heavy  blow,  the 
beam  allows  the  shaft  to  fall  upon  it,  pick  it  up  and  raise  it  again, 
the  man  gives  another  half  turn,  the  spade  falls  again,  and  so  on 
for  hours  with  ex- 
traordinary    ra])id- 
itv.  the  spade  fall- 
irig  perhaps  thirty 
times    a    minute. 
This    is    known    as 
the  "free  fall"  sys- 
tem, from  the  ( ier- 
man    J  rcifall.     Af- 


ter' 


a 


xxlnle      tlie 


eartli  is  extract  en 
by  means  i)\  a  co- 
lossal shell-auger, 
and  the  iron  tube 
is  lowered  mio 
place. 

The  spades  are 
of  all  shapes  and 
sizes,  and  so  far  all 
is  plain  sailing. 
]kn    by  and  by  ac-  ^^  -Fountain"  at  Baku. 

Cidcnlb       lia])pen. 

Spade-  break,  ln])es  collapse  under  the  ennrmou-  pre'=^ure 
nece-arx  to  force  them  into  place,  steel  ropes  an<l  diani-  give 
^vay  and  precipitate  the  whole  apparatus  into  the  well,  or  the 
apparatus  gets  txyisted  or  broken  and  jams  fast  perhai)s  a 
thousand  feet  below  the  surface.  Or  perhaps  even  a  wrench 
or  a  heavy  bolt  falls  into  the  well— quite  enough   to  prevent 


O  O  '") 


AIJ.     I  III:    RLSSIAS 


the    "free    fall"    from    workin-       Then    the    fun    he-nis-^^-nnt 
lliat   the  well-owner  re-anls  u  a.s  fun  at  all.      Hut   the  hu.sniess 
of  pieknio-  up  these  thin-s  seems   to  me  an  mtoxieatm-  task. 
Remember  that  yom-  aeeident  Iia>  happened  perhaps   1.500  feet 
under-round,    in   a   tube    perhaiKs   a    loot    m    diameter,    perhaps 
only  SIX  inehes,  for,  as  the  well  -oes  deeper,  its  diameter  de- 
creases.     \'ou    do   not   know   what    the   aeeident    is— von   only 
know  that  somethin-    perhaps  evei-ythin-,  has  -one  to  smash 
down  there.     Or  you  may  know  that  vou -have  a  ton  of  broken. 
twisted   iron   jajnmed    ti-ht    in    the    narrow   iron    tube,    with    a 
(juai-ter  of  a  mile  of  wire  rope  or  chain  piled  up  pell-mell  on  the 
top  of  it.     Your  business  is  to  -et  it  all  out—and  the  oibborcr 
does  get  it  all  out.     In  his  workshop  are  laid  side  by  side  scores 
of    suro-ieal    instruments— tweezci-s.     pincers,     foixeps.     probes, 
snares,  ccrascurs,  expanding  things  whieh  grasp  a  tube  by  the 
inside,  revolving  knives  which  cut  a  three-inch  ii-on  bar  cjr  a  jj- 
inch  tube,  eccentiac  hooks  which  put  straight  anything  lying  on 
its  side,  so  that  the  pincers  ean  seize  it,  and  in  fact  a  replica  of 
every  ghastly  implement  of  modern  surgery  that  1  know,  execpt 
a  speculum.     There  is  this  little  difference,  however,  that  each  of 
these  instruments  weighs  a  (juarter  of  a  ton  or  more,  that  a  whole 
clay  is  not  too  much  in  which  to  lower  it,  let  it  do  its  work,  or  fail 
to  do  it,  and  hoist  it  up  again,  and  tliat  the  oil-sui;geon  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  guide  him  except  the  light  of  pure  imaginative 
genius  and  the  waggle  in  liis  hand  of  a  wire  rope  which  has  half 
a  ton  dangling  from  it  a  (luarter  of  a  mile  l)elow.     The  reader 
should  not  now  be  surprised  when  I  add  that  in  a  moment  some- 
thing drops  into  the  well,  and  that  it  sometimes  takes  the  most 
skilful  engineer  six  months  to  pick  it  up.     I  looked  with  pro- 
found respect  upon  the  man  who  accomplishes  such  things.     He 
happened  to  be  a  Caucasian  prince,  but  that  had  nothing  to  do 
with   my  admiration.      Never  in   my  life  have   I  seen  anything 
which  demanded  such  infinite  patience.     Waiting  for  the  Foreign 
Office  to  publish  a  Blue-book  is  child's  play  in  comparison. 


THE    OIL-WELLS    OF    BAKU 


223 


But  at  length  the  engineer  has  his  splendid  reward.  The  oil 
stratum  is  reached,  he  rolls  alTectionately  in  his  hand  the  slimy 
sand  that  the  digger  brings  up — he  is  sure  there  is  oil!  So  to  the 
wire  rope  a  hollow  cylinder,  twenty  to  thirty  feet  long  and  an 
inch  or  two  less  in  diameter  than  the  lowest  tubes,  with  a  plunge- 
valve  at  the  bottom,  is  attached,  and  cautiously  lowered.  It 
comes  back  by  and  by,  the  valve  is  pushed  open  as  it  is  gently 
lowered  upon  a  board,  and  out  pours  a  quarter  of  a  ton  of  sand, 
slime,  water — and  the  precious  oil.  At  last  it  is  only  oil,  and 
then  the  well  is  pumped  night  and  day  till  it  runs  dry. 

It  takes  on  an  average  fifteen  months  to  dig  a  well,  and  may 
cost  five  or  six  thousand  pounds.  The  tubes  alone  for  a  well  2,000 
feet  deep  cost  £3,000.  But  perhaps  it  will  give  you  five  hundred 
tons  of  oil  a  day.  The  average  life  of  a  w^ell  may  Jje  said  to  be 
three  years,  but  of  course  it  is  often  vastly  more.  There  is,  it 
must  be  added,  the  horrid  chance — rare  hereabouts — that  after  all 
your  boring  you  may  find  nothing.  Three  miles  from  here  a  Rus- 
sian well-owner  sank  a  w^ell  1,995  ^^^^  ^^^^  failed  to  get  a  trace  of 
oil.  But  on  the  other  hand — and  this  is  wdiere  the  gambler's  ex- 
citement comes  in — you  may  have  the  delirious  joy  of  getting  a 
"  fountain,"  and  then  hats  are  thrown  up  and  dividends  mount 
skvward.  A  "  fountain  "  is  an  artesian  well  of  oil  which  bursts 
upward  with  incredible  force  and  gives  you  as  much  oil  in  a  minute 
for  nothing  as  you  could  pump  in  twenty-four  hours  of  labour  and 
expense.  Perhaps  it  blows  the  huge  baler  through  the  derrick 
roof  and  into  somebody  else's  boiler-house,  knocks  the  derrick  it- 
self into  splinters,  hurls  up  great  stones  like  cannon-balls,  buries 
the  machinery  in  sand  and  slime  and  oil,  and  floods  the  reservoirs 
and  roads — nitchcvo,  the  more  the  better,  it  is  coining  gold  for 
its  lucky  owners.  The  Russian  Petroleum  Company  had  a  '*  foun- 
tain "  once  wdiich  gave  forty  million  pouds  of  oil  in  two  months. 
The  world  went  very  well  then.  Curiously  enough,  a  fountain 
made  its  welcome  appearance  on  the  same  property  the  very  day 
I  went  to  say  good-bye  to  Mr.  Tweedy,  its  managing  director 


224 


ALL    THE    RLSSLAS 


in  London,  whom  by  o-ood  luck  I  found  at  IJaku,  and  he  had  of 
course  rushed  off  to  see  it.  'idiis  is  a  good  opportunity  for  me 
to  say  how  much  1  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Tweedy  for  the  oj)i)or- 
tunities  of  studying  and  understanding  the  business  of  oil-getting. 
His  knowledge  of  the  subject  is  minute  and  profound,  he  has 
rendered  great  services  to  the  successful  investment  of  British 
capital  in  Baku,  and  after  what  I  have  written  it  is  perhaps  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  his  enthusiasm  is  contagious. 

Such  is,  in  hasty  outline,  the  business  of  oil-getting  on  it.-^ 
mechanical  side.  Imagine  a  couple  of  thousand  of  these  black 
derricks  crowded  together,  with  a  network  of  little  canals,  res- 
ervoirs dug  in  the  ground,  and  pipes  innumerable  just  laid  about, 
one  above  another,  exactly  as  they  happened  to  lie  most  con- 
veniently—the pii)es  which  carry  off  the  oil  to  the  reservoirs  at  a 
little  distance,  the  whole  place  ccaselesslv  reekinir  smokin^-- 
Steaming,  and  humming,  and  you  know  what  Balakhani  looks  like, 
and  why  it  seemed  so  strange  to  me  when  J  drove  through  it  at 
night. 

Since  so  niucli   P.ritish  capital  i^  iiiM-^tcd  in  tin-  (li.-tnct  cer- 
tain ^tati.^tic>  conotTiiini^  the  |>i'' »diicniin  of  t)il  ma\-  l)c  read  witli 
interest,  espcciallx   .miicc  !lie\-  point  to  some  niiiiortant   conclu- 
sions regarding  the  future  pro.^pecth  of  the  iiidn>irv.     Idie  num- 
ber of  tirms  and  companie-;  engaged   m    i8()()  was    i()0.   owning 
1.357  active  wells.     (  )t  the-c  firms  ()j  sprang  up  during  the  pre- 
vious two  years,  and  2()  of  them  were  still  at  the  l)orin^'-  sta^'-e. 
All  attempts  to  '*  strike  oil."  in  spite  of  extensive  and  deep  boring, 
outside  the  five  proved  areas  of  the  Apsheron  Peninsula,  namely, 
Bibi-Eibat  and  the  great  oil-held  formed  by  Ikdakhani.  Sabuntchi, 
Romani  and  Binagadi,  have  proved  wholly  unsuccessful.     The 
total  output  for  1899*  (to  which  the  Binagadi  area  contributed 
very  little)  was  2,167,801.130  gallons.    This  was  over  162,000.000 
gallons  more  than  in  1898.  but  though  this  great  increase  looks 

*  The  figures  here  given  are  taken  from  the  report  of  the  official  Russian  supervisor 
of  the  petroleum  industry  at  Baku,  as  published  in  the  official   Vtestnik  Finanzof. 


THE    OIL-WELLS    OF    BAKU 


225 


very  satisfactory  at  first  sight,  further  examination  gives  it  a  less 
encouraging  aspect.  In  the  first  place,  the  relative  increase  com- 
pared with  previous  years  shows  a  marked  decline;  and  second, 
these  increases  are  nothing  like  so  great  as  the  increases  in  energy 
and  expenditure  in  boring  operations.  In  1899  the  enormous 
sum  of  £2,600,000  was  spent  on  boring  alone,  and  572,761  feet 
of  wells  were  bored,  against  402,605  feet  in  1898 — an  increase 
of  over  42  per  cent.  Thus  for  a  42  per  cent,  increase  of  effort, 
only  an  8  per  cent,  increase  of  output  was  obtained.    This  is  not 


The  Railway  Station,  Baku. 

quite  so  bad  as  it  looks,  for  a  number  of  wells,  especially  on  the 
Bibi-Eibat  area,  were  only  commenced  in  the  second  half  of  the 
year,  and  could  not  have  become  productive.  But  it  points  to 
the  serious  fact  that  the  whole  oil-field  is  becoming  less  produc- 
tive. This  conclusion  is  clearly  borne  out  by  other  figures.  The 
number  of  inactive  wells,  for  instance,  has  increased  by  nearly 
50  per  cent.,  whereas  the  number  of  active  wells  has  increased  by 
only  24  per  cent.  Of  the  five  areas,  moreover,  only  Sabuntchi  and 
Balakhani  showed  an  absolute  increase  of  output.  Most  sig- 
nificant of  all,  however,  are  the  facts  that  the  ''  fountains  " — i.e.y 


2  26 


ALL    THi:    RLSSLIS 


THL    ()IL-\VI  LLS    OF    BAKU 


o  2 "" 


\\'c'il>  where  the  uil  i^  lurcccl  lu  the  -iirfaee  1)\'  cnrilnie':!  L^a^.  -how- 
iiig-  that  the  seam  has  no  otlier  siitTicient  outlet  —  liaxe  (lee!-ea>etl 
by  oiie-hah";  and  that  the  average  pruductiveneb^  ul  \ven>  has 
reguhirly  diminished,  while  their  average  depth  has  as  regnlarlv 
increased.  This  is  strikingly  .shown  by  the  official  hgures  when 
arranged  thus: 

A\  ciaxe  i'luduoioa  Average  Depth 

per  Well  in  Gallons.  per  Wtll  m  I'cet. 

1^95 2,578,996 853 

i^y^^ 2,171.922 895 

1  ^97 1 .926,292 897 

1^9^ 1,811,672 (^17 

'%-> 1.597.495 937 

These  figures  are  again  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  whereas  in 
1895  oJ^b'  ^  per  cent,  of  the  wells  were  "  deep  "  ones,  /.r.,  over 
1,400  feet  in  depth,  and  gave  only  5.4  per  cent,  of  the  total  out- 
put, in  1899  over  10  per  cent,  of  the  wells  were  "  deep."  and  gave 
over  29  per  cent,  of  the  total  outi)ut. 

The  conclusion  is  thus  una\a)i(la1)le  that  the  upi)er  levels  of  oil- 
strata  are  l)ecoming  exhausted,  and  that  in  the  future  the  supply 
of  petroleum  from  the  Baku  district  will  depend  more  and  more 
upon  deep  borings,  until  these  in  their  turn  become  exhausted, 
or  the  extreme  depth  possible  for  boring  and  pumping  is  reached. 
In  other  words,   the  aj)])roaching  exhaustion  of  this  great  oil- 
field is  unquestiona1)ly  foreshadowed,  though  no  man  can  foretell 
when  this  point  will  be  reached.     I  hap|)en  to  know,  by  the  way, 
that  Russian  engineers  have  (hscovered  another  oil-field,  which 
they  believe  to  be  of  the  highest  value,  in  an  entirely  different 
district,  at  a  considerable  (hstance  from  Baku.     For  certain  o-ood 
reasons  no  particulars  concerning  this  have  yet  been  made  public. 
It  is  also  practically  a  certainty  that   vahial)le  oil-fields  will  be 
found  in  other  parts  of  the  C/aucasus  itself. 

I  should  say,  however,  though  of  course  I  speak  entirely  as 
a  non-expert,  that  the  above  statistics  and  considerations  deserve 
the  careful  attention  of  investors  in  oil-bearing  properties  at  Baku. 


From  Baku  mv  way  now  Hcs  across  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  to 
the  wild,  world-famous  towns  of  the  heart  of  Asia,  once  so  far 
away  that  a  man  could  make  a  reputation  by  riding  to  one  of 
them,  now  so  intimately  connected  with  the  commerce  of  the 
world  that  the  price  of  cotton  is  telegraphed  to  them  every  morn- 
ing from  Liverpool. 


I  i 


CENTRAL   ASIA 


CHAPi  i:r  xvj 

THE    TRANS-CASPJAN    RAIIAVAY:     ACROSS    CENTRAL 

ASE\    BY    TRAIN 

^TOT  many  years  a-o— since  a  middle-aged  man  left  college, 
y       in  fact— a  jonrney  to  the  liean  ..f  Central  Ana  involved 
several  curious  preliminaries.     I'ir>t  of  all.  making  a  will,  because 
the  chances  of  your  coming  hack  again  were  slender.     Second, 
a  perfect  colloquial  knowledge  of  at  lea>t  one  Iiastern  language. 
Third,  an  Oriental  cast  of  countenanc.\  and  much  skill  in  chsgnis- 
ing  it.     Fonrth,  a  most   unusual  love  of  adveiUure  and  stock  ni 
personal  courage.      l-or  y<ni  wvrc  i^^nui^  to  places  a>  ^u^incum^ 
as  Mecca,  as  hostile  to  the  stranger  a.  d-lHl)et,  a<;  fanatical  a^  no- 
where else,  and  amongst  other  thnig.  you  were  running  the  ri^k 
of  a  fate  uneciualled   ni   .sheer   h^.rror  m   the   wlir.k'   ^.sde   world. 
namely,  being  eaten  alive  l.y  vermin  tramvd  for  ihv  purpose.     Tlie 
qualifications  luentioncd  above  were  possessed  hy  Aviuimu:.  \"ani- 
bery,  which  accounts,  fur  hi^  successful  |.ni]~nev  and  -afe  return. 
and  the  fatv  alluded  to  wa:>  sufTcred  hx  .mv  onunrsni^n  Stoddart 
and  Conoll\-   in   tju'   forties. 

Nowadays  the  undertakmg  Is  simj)]er  and  Ic<s  perilous.  To 
begin  with,  yon  apply  to  the  Russian  authorities  f.)r  .s|)ecial  per- 
mission to  travel  in  the  Tran.-Caspian  mihtarv  district.  Usually 
they  accord  it ;  if  they  do  not.  von  don't  go.  Supposing  thev  do 
you  betake  yourself  to  Baku,  by  the  route  you  liave  ixad  about 
here,  or  some  other;  you  drive  down  in  the  evening  to  the  wharf 
of  the  Caucasus  and  Mercurv  Steamship  Companv— stopping  on 
the  w^ay,  if  you  have  the  proper  traveller's  foresight,  to  buv  a 
thousand  cigarettes,  a  bottle  of  something  for  strictlv  medical 

228 


THE    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


2  2  0 


use,  and  a  dozen  tins  of  sardines;  you  take  a  ticket  for  Krasno- 
vodsk,  and  a  perspiring  Persian  carries  your  luggage  on  board 
a  sturdy  little  paddle-boat,  built  thirty  years  ago  on  the  Tyne.  If 
you  are  lucky,  you  travel  with  the  same  captain  that  I  did,  who 
knows  about  as  much  French  as  you  know  Russian,  but  wdiose 
geniality  is  wholly  independent  of  any  philological  basis;  you 
have  a  jovial  little  supper  with  him;  you  turn  into  a  comfortable 
cabin;    and  some  time  after  you  are  asleep  the  ship  paddles  out 


The  Landint;-Stage  ai  Krasnovodsk. 

into  the  blue  Caspian,  her  nose  turned  toward  the  rising  sun. 
Not  much  danger  so  far,  and  disguise  supertluous. 

Eighteen  hours  is  the  allotted  time  for  the  sea-crossing,  and 
in  fine  weather  it  is  enough.  Coming  back  we  took  forty,  for 
there  was  a  wind  and  sea  that  at  times  made  us  think  it  would 
have  been  safer,  after  all,  to  be  in  old-fashioned  Central  Asia,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  man  we  lost  overboard.  Going  East,  however, 
the  Caspian  was  like  a  pond,  and  on  the  crowded  decks,  with  their 
conspicuous  division  of  quarters  for  "  Men,"  ''  Women,"  and 


IJ    < 


IJO 


ALL     IIW.    RUSSL^S 


•*  Persians."  happiness  rcii^ned,  and  everylxxly  ale  sunllower- 
seeds  and  brewed  tea.  Ihc  uily  reek  of  IJakn  was  far  behnid, 
the  Casi)ian  was  as  still  as  a  lake,  and  at  last  ilie  little  paddle-boat 
turned  sharj)ly  round  a  sand-spit  and  brought  into  view  a  hun- 
dred flat  white  houses,  seattered  at  the  foot  of  eonver<'-in<>-  bare 
brown  hills,  like  a  few  erystals  of  stigar  at  the  bottom  of  a  brown 
cup,  and  we  were  at  Krasnovodsk — "*  Red  Water."  thou^rh  whv 
SO  called  1  cannot  tell,  for  there  is  no  fresh  water  there  at  all, 
except  wdiat  they  produce  every  day  in  tlie  big  distillerv,  and  the 
sea  is  a  deep  Italian  l)lue. 


The'  R.ulwjv    St.iti-n  at   Kivusn.  .v.  .dsk. 

Here,  according  to  some  authorities,  in  bvgone  ages  the 
mighty  Oxus  emptied  itself  into  the  sea.  so  that  from  Peter  the 
Great's  time  till  now  there  has  always  l)een  a  project  of  l)ringing 
it  back  to  its  old  bed.  The  town  is  new.  for  the  original  starthigt 
point  of  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway  was  at  Uzun-Ada,  further  t'o 
the  south,  in  a  bay  which  proved  unsuitable  for  shipping.  ATud- 
brown  mountains  hem  it  closely  r(nmd:  not  a  green  kaf  or  a 
drop  of  fresh  w^ater  is  in  sight,  the  place  is  as  burnt  and  drv  as 
the  mside  of  a  baker's  oven.  And  in  November  a  hot  and  daz- 
zling sun  is  still  beating  down  into  it !    The  long,  handsome  white 


THL    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


^31 


stone  building,  of  consistent  Oriental  architecture,  is  the  railway 
station,  for  Russia  lay.^  solidly  and  artistically  the  foundation- 
stones  of  her  empire,  no  matter  how  remote  they  may  be,  and 
there  stands  the  tram,  all  white,  ready  for  its  incredible  journey. 
The  next  most  conspicuous  building  is  the  distillery,  wdiich  sup- 
|)lies  both  the  town  and  the  line,  and  the  next  is  a  sort  of  military 
depot,  half  l)arracks  and  half  prison — a  halting-place  between 
Europe  and  Asia  for  soldiers  and  convicts  alike. 

No  foreigner,  as  1  have  said,  lands  at  Krasnovodsk  without 
special  permission;    Russia  watches  all  strangers  on  her  frontiers 
— and    England's — hereabouts.      Mine    was    obtained    from    St. 
Petersburg  through  the  British  Foreign  Offtce  before  I  started. 
The  wooden  pier  was  crowded  with  civilians  and  porters — Persian 
hamals—Sind,  where  the  steamer  was  to  touch,  a  group  of  uni- 
formed police  stood,  with  a  military  band  behind  them.     When 
we  were  within  a  few  yards  the  music  struck  up,  and  as  soon  as 
the  gang-plank  was  in  position  the  chief  of  police  came  aboard, 
and  nol)0(ly  else.    The  captain  awaited  him.     Were  there  any  for- 
eigners on  l)oard?     One — myself.     My  name?     An  oflicial  list 
was  produced  from  a  portfolio  and  consulted.     PacJiolst! — "  If 
vou  please  " — and  I  was  politely  invited  ashore.     In  St.  Peters- 
l)urg  it  i>  the  otticial  pleasure  to  smile  when  you  speak  of  special 
permission  l)eing  nece»ary  for  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway.    They 
take  it  seriouslv  enough  at  Krasnovodsk.     1  may  add  that  after 
this  original  formality-— with  the  single  exception  of  the  Chief  of 
Police,  an  armv  Colonel  at  Askhabad.  wdio  curtly  summoned  me 
to  his  office  and  kept  me  waiting  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  then 
charged  me  before  all  his  subordinates  with  being  in  Central  Asia 
without  permission,  the  fact  being  that  not  only  had  I  special  per- 
mission l)ut  also  the  highest  official  letters  of  personal  introduc- 
tion  to   all   the   principal    authorities— I   received   the    greatest 
possible  courtesy  and  assistance  from  the  Russian  officials  every- 
where, a  courtesy  going  so  far  on  one  occasion  as  a*  mounted 
torchlight  escort  of  Cossacks.     It  is,  however,  but  natural  that 


■  wvof    *%■■<-—     *-%,■."•  V* 


.•>>»  -^-ifc  «**-v  •■•»■-*  •-»*4  >fc»y  i 


.'-*.*»  *A  V  tVJ'-'J**'*"*'-*-***'*-'"^     Vs*  ■■»(*.    ■v.  - 


-■^li^J**f^ 


232 


ALL    THE    RLSSL^S 


I  ■ 


the  Russians  should  be  ready  to  show  what  they  have  done  in 
Central  Asia.    They  have  every  reason  to  he  proud  of  it. 

On  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway  there  are  two  kinds  of  train — 
the  train  and  the  i)ost-train.  And  the  difference  l)Ct\veen  them  is 
that  the  latter  has  a  restaurant-car  and  the  former  has  not.  The 
post-train  has  an  extra  passen^er-carriaj^e,  and  the  train  has  sev- 
eral freio-ht-cars,  hut  the  si)ee(l  is  the  same  and  the  discomfort  is 
the  same.  For  what  the  Rtissian  railway  service  i^ives  you  in  extra 
comfort  on  the  mai^mificent  Sil)erian  Ex{)ress,  it  takes  out  of  you 
in  extra  fatigue  and  dirt  on  the  Trans-Casi)ian.     The  train  tliat 

awaited    me    was    the 
post -train     and     con- 
sisted of  live  corridor 
carria^i^es,  the  last  he- 
ini;-   a    restaurant-car, 
all    of    them    painted 
white.    Tlie  tender  of 
the  engine  was  an  oil- 
tank,    and    behind    it, 
on    a    flat    truck,    was 
an  enormous  wooden 
tub,    to    hold    water, 
f'>r    in    Central    Asia 
there  is  little  fuel,  and  water  Is  the  most  precious  commodity 
that  exists.      But  a  -lance  at   the   train  raised  a  most  painful 
suspicion,  which  a  visit  to  the  ticket  office  confirmed— tliere  is 
not  a  first-class  carriage  on  the  Trans-Caspian  Railwav!     It  was 
not  snobbery  which  evoked  one's  consternation  at  this  discovery. 
A  thousand  miles  of  a  slow,  hot,  dusty  journey  lav  before  me,  and 
even  in  European  Russia  the  prospect  of  a  thousand  miles  in  a 
second-class  carriage  would  be  far  from  pleasant,  while  in  Central 
Asia,  with  ample  experience  in  other  lands  of  what  a  native  crowd 
is,  it  was  appalling.     Let  me  say  at  once  that  it  more  than  ful- 
filled all  my  expectations.     The  ordinary  second-class,  too,  has 


The  Trans-Caspian  Train. 


THE    TRANS-CASFLAN    RAILWAY 


^33 


narrow,  tlat  wooden  seats,  with  thin,  hard  cushions  spread  on 
them.  After  a  couple  of  nights  on  one  of  these  you  are  stiff  for 
a  week.  There  is  a  carriage  which  has  stuffed  seats,  but  it  is  half 
second  and  half  third,  and  the  toilette  arrangements  are  all  in  the 
third-class  half.  Moreover,  in  the  stuited  cushions  are  passengers 
without  number  wdio  pay  no  fare.  I  still  wriggle  as  I  think  of 
those  carriages,  for  on  one  never-to-be-forgotten  stage  I  became 
perforce  wdiat  a  recent  Act  of  Parliament  calls  a  "  verminous  per- 
son." Now,  to  go  unwashed  is  bad,  but  to  share  your  washing 
with  third-class  Russian  Asiatic  passengers  is  not  only  worse — 
it  is  impossible.  Eurthermore,  wdiile  the  railway  authorities  have 
separate  third-class  carriages  for  Europeans  and  natives,  the  sec- 
ond-class is  open  to  both.  Their  idea  probably  was  that  the  higher 
fare  would  deter  the  native  passenger,  but  this  is  far  from  being 
the  case,  so  prosperous  has  the  sedentary  Sart  become  under  Rus- 
sian rule.  Therefore  your  carriage  is  invaded  by  a  host  of  natives 
with  their  innumerable  bundles,  their  water-pots  and  their  tea- 
pots, their  curiosity  and  their  expectoration.  They  do  not  under- 
stand the  unwritten  law  which  reserves  to  you  the  seat  you  have 
once  occupied;  they  dump  themselves  and  their  belongings  any- 
where, and  they  are  very  difficult  to  detach:  they  are  entirely 
amiable;  they  follow  your  every  moveinent  for  hours  with  an 
unblinking  curiosity;  and  they  smell  strong.  I  hope  I  have  noth- 
ing but  good  will  for  my  Eastern  fellows-man,  and  I  assuredly  often 
find  him  more  interesting  than  people  with  white  skins,  but  I  have 
the  greatest  objection  to  passing  days  and  nights  crowded  close 
with  him  in  an  over-heated  railway  carriage.  And  if  I  expatiate 
somewhat  upon  this  minor  topic  it  is  because  the  Trans-Caspian 
railway  journey  is  such  a  remarkable  experience  and  affords  such 
rare  and  vast  interests,  that  everybody  who  can  afford  the  time 
and  money  should  take  it,  and  the  Russian  authorities  should  do 
all  in  their  power  to  make  the  actual  travelling  as  tolerable  as 
possible.  As  things  are  at  present,  I  should  not  advise  any  lady 
to  come  who  is  not  prepared  for  some  of  the  most  personally 


y 


H*     '  J    \  -     '      '   • 


.^J  *.. 


^34 


ALL    THK    RUSSL^S 


objectionable  sides  of  *'  roui^liiiiL:  ii."'     Prince  llilkotf.  however. 
Minister  of  Railways,  is  so  prompt  to  make  any  improvement  or 
to  inang-urate  any  new  enterprise  that  U  this  plaint  shonld  meet 
his  eye  it  may  well  be  that  no  fntnre  traveller  will  have  occasiiMi 
to  make  it.     There  is  also  one  other  little  matter  which  calls  for 
attention.      Formerly  the  train  at    Krasnovo<lsk   waited   for  the 
steamer  from  Baku.     Xow  the  local  railway  authority  causes  it 
to  start  precisely  at  three,  even  if  the  steamer  is  cominj^  into 
harbour.     So  it  has  ha{)pened  that  the  train  has  started  without 
a  single  passenger,  while  the  wretched  peoi)le  arriving  by  steamer 
have  had  to  pass  twenty-three  hours  in  some  railwav  carriages, 
there  being  nothing:  of  the  nature  of  a  hotel  at   Krasnovodsk. 
Such  an  absurdity  should  be  corrected,  but  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  railway  here  at  all  is  so  marvellous  that  every  other  consideration 
is  insignificant  l)esi(le  it. 

There  is  a  strange  medley  on  the  platform  before  we  start. 
Crowds  of  ragged  porters,  jostling  and  jabbering  in  Persian  and 
broken   Russian,  and  carrxing  huge  l)undles  of  native  luggage 
tied    m    cari)ets;    a    few    C!vih"aii> — mcrcliant^    and    commercial 
travellers;    Armenian  "drummers."  sliarp  and  swarthv.  for  Per- 
sian firms;  a  score  of  officer-  ni  \anoii>  innfortns;   sexcral  -oldier^ 
sweating  in  heavy  gray  overcuat-^-thcy  hadh'  nccii  a  baih^--and 
old.  patched  l)reeclies  of  red  momcco  leatlier;    three  otficers  in 
the  handsome  green  and  gold  oi  the  /^Oi^ruiucliuayu  slnicha,  the 
frontier  guards,  soldiers  and  ciistoms-otricers  in  one;    >pecimens 
of  most  of  the  natives  of  Central  Asia;   and  niy>elf.  the  onlv  for- 
eigner.    There  are  no  fewer  than  eleven  parallel  lines  o^  rail,  for 
either  military  purposes  or  freight  accommodation,  as  mav  l)e 
needed.     At  three  o'clock  wx^  start,  and  between  the  l)are  brown 
hills  and  the  still  blue  sea  the  train  runs  slowly  along  for  hours. 
It  carries,  as  I  said,  its  oil-fuel,  and  its  water  in  a  huge  wooden 
tank  on  a  truck  behind  the  engine,  f(^r  the  country  is  a  desert, 
and  the  stations  are  merely  the  little  white  houses  of  the  employees, 
appearing  as  specks  in  the  wilderness.     The  low  indented  coast- 


THE    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY  235 


hue,  within  a  few  yards  of  our  right,  reminds  me  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean coast,  l)etween  Marseilles  and  Nice,  but  here  there  are  in 
every  bay  thousands  of  white-breasted  ducks.  For  twenty-five 
miles  the  line  runs  across  an  absolutely  barren  plain;  sunset  finds 
us  traversimr  a  saltv  waste,  dotted  with  scanty  bushes,  and  when  I 
look  out  of  the  window  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  a  bright  moon 
shines  on  the  same  desolate  scene.  But  at  eight  o'clock  next 
morning  comes  a  sudden  thrill.  Over  a  little  station  are  written 
the  magic  words  "  Geok  Tepe,"  and  I  rush  out  to  see  if  anything 
remains  to  tell  of  the  terrible  battle  and  more  terrible  slaughter 


Ge'>k  Tepe.  the  Okl  Ramparts  and  the  New  Railway. 

of  1881.  Sure  eiiougli.  (mi  the  oi)])osite  >ide  of  the  line,  only  fifty 
vards  away,  is  the  whole  story,  and  luckily  the  train  is  accident- 
ally delaved  long  enough  to  enable  me  to  make  a  hasty  visit  to 

the  historic  spot. 

It  is  a  rectangular  fortress,  a  thousand  yards  square,  formed 
by  a  high  and  thick  earthen  wall  and  rampart.  The  sides  are  rid- 
dled with  bullet-holes — not  a  square  yard  is  untouched,  while 
scores  of  gaps  in  the  top  show^  wdiere  shells  have  burst.  Several 
complete  breaches  gape  wide,  and  one  wdiole  corner  is  gone — 
that  is  where  the  mine  exploded,  giving  both  the  signal  and 
the  occasion  for  the  final  attack.     Here  raged  for  three  whole 


f 


}/ 


ffi 


H. 


236 


ALL    THL    Rl!,SSIAS 


weeks  an  almost  uniiitenuptcd  battle.  Umixhi  ]>y  hotli  sides  with 
a  feroeioiis  courage  never  sitrpasse.l  ni  history;    here  Si^obelei, 
and    Kuropatkm    under   hini.   won    their   -reatest    lanreis;     here 
Russia  heeanie  unstress  of  Tran^-t  aspia:   here  ched  a  gallant  and 
an  interesting  raee.     Tile  Tekke   J-urkoniaus  llrst  (h'ove  haek  the 
Ritssian  (ieueral  Lomakin:   tlien  tliey  eoini)ietely  routed  Lazaref 
at  this  very  spot,  and  swept  iu  triumph  over  the  whole  eonntry. 
I'or   two   years   SkoiieJef   made    lii>   preparation-.   an<l    on   Jan- 
uary I,  1881,  lie  delivered  his  first  attack  upon  this  Turkoman 
stronghold  with  8.000  troops  and  more  than  fifty  guns.     Inside 
was  the  flower  of  the  Turkoman  raee.  with  7.000'  women  and 
children.     Their  felt  tents  were  >et  on  lire  by  petroleum  bombs, 
artillery  rained  shell  and  shrapnel  on  them,  gradtiallv  the  trenches 
drew  nearer;   but  they  fought  wiili  a  desperation  which  kept  the 
Russians  at  bay  for  three  weeks,  and  on  more  than  one  occasion 
they  routed  the  invaders  in  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  and  slashed 
them  to  death  in  their  own  trenches,  leaving  Russian  heads  and 
limbs  scattered  about.      But  the  inevitable  end  came,  and  the 
slaughter  of  every  male  left  in  the  fortress,  and,  after  it!  that  ter- 
rible Cossack  pursuit  of  flying  men  and  women  for  ten  miles. 
Opinions  dilTer  as  to  this  part  of  the  struggle.     What  is  certain 
is  that  never  since  that  time  has  a  Turkoman  hand  been  raised 
against  Russia,  nor  ever  will  be.     If  you  would  strike  onlv  once,  ■ 
and  thus  be  more  merciful  in  the  en<l,  you  must  strike  hard,  was 
Skobelefs  motto  in  dealing  with  Orientals,  as  it  has  been  that 
of  all  who  have  understood  the  Eastern  character.    Trans-Caspia 
has  been  as  peaceful  as  paradise  since  then.    But  Turkoman  brides 
cost  few  cattle  for  many  years,  as  all  the  liridegrooms  lav  beneath 
Geok  Tepe.  and  the  knell  of  the  Turkoman,  so  hospitable  to 
strangers,  so  terrible  in  his  raids,  .so  devoted  to  his  prond  .steed, 
so  independent  and  gay  in  his  moving  home,  was  sounded.     He 
died  as  he  had  lived,  and  the  stone  crosses  in  the  gaps  in  his 
fortress  wall  tell  how  many  Russians,  as  fearless  as  himself,  went 
with  him  where  brave  dead  soldiers  go. 


THE    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


237 


*  "V      *     ,  ,^    .  .  1  ,  . 


With  a  natural  desire  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  their  own 
victories,  the  Russians  have  built  between  the  railway  station  and 
the  ruins  a  pretty  little  museum  of  white  stone.  In  front  of  it 
stands  a  Turkoman  cannon,  captured  by  them  from  the  Persians 
in  one  of  their  innumerable  raids.  This  has  its  glorious  story,  too, 
for  though  it  was  mounted  on  the  ramparts  of  Geok  Tepe  the 
Turkomans  did  not  know  how  to  use  it,  and,  having  captured 
some  Russian  artillerymen,  they  ordered  them  to  fire  it  on  their 
own  comrades,  or  be  slaughtered  on  the  spot.  The  Russians  loy- 
ally chose  death.  In  the  museum  are  portraits  of  Skobelef  and 
the  other  commanders,  and  a  collection  of  Turkoman  guns  and 
s^vords— poor  tools  against  artillery  and  petroleum  bombs,  throw- 
ing the  bravery  of  these  nomad  horsemen  into  still  higher  relief. 
I  ran  up  the  rough  earthen  steps  leading  to  the  shattered  ram- 
parts and  looked  through  them  at  the  busy  station,  the  white  train, 
and  the  groups  of  officers  strolling  up  and  down  the  platform.  It 
was  the  advance  of  Russia  at  a  glance. 


For  some  time  now  we  have  had  the  mountains  to  our  right, 
and  the  country  has  become  more  populated,  though  the  herbage 
is  still  thin,  and  long  strings  of  camels  wind  across  the  plain.  The 
Turkoman  mud  houses  are  hardly  visible,  but  the  villages  of 
Khirghiz  kibitkas,  round  felt  tents,  make  picturesque  groups. 
There  is  neither  cutting  nor  embankment,  the  line  being  simply 
laid  upon  the  surface  of  the  plain.  When  General  Annenkof  was 
building  it,  w^ith  almost  superhuman  energy  and  a  confident  en- 
thusiasm which  events  have  more  than  justified,  everything  re- 
quired—rails, sleepers,  men,  food,  water,  protection— had  to  be 
moved  forward  by  a  train  always  following  the  railhead.  Even 
to-day  a  large  proportion  of  the  stopping-places  are  just  stations, 
and  nothing  else — a  house,  a  storehouse  embedded  in  the 
ground  as  a  protection  against  both  heat  and  cold,  a  well,  built 
round  with  sloping  stones  and  planted  around  with  trees— the 


2j8 


ALL   THL    RUSSLAS 


I: 


lit 


only    trees    in    the   landscape,   a    few   sliai^-y    black    cattle,   and 
often,  too,  a  little  unfenced  cemetery  in  the  open  desert,  with 
half  a  dozen  wooden  crosses  to  mark  its  site.     The  station-master 
and  his  family  who  live  in  these  hotises  have  no  nearer  neii^h- 
bonrs   than  their  fellow-otlicials   at   the   stations  on   either  side 
of  them,  and  no  comiection  with  the  world  except  hy  the  one 
passenger   train    daily    in   each    direction,    whose   arrival    is    the 
chief  daily  event  at  every  place.     At  Askhal)ad.  the  administra- 
tive  centre  of  Trans-Caspia,   where   we  arrived  an   hour  and   a 
half  after  leaving  Geok  Tepe,  a  nnlitary  IkukI  played  us  in,  a 
crowd  was  waiting  on  tlie  platform, and  an  ohicer  of  gendarmes, 
recognising  me  as  a  foreigner,  became  anxious  and  made  many 
pointed    in([uiries.      luist    and    West    mingled    here    in    curious 
fashion — elegant  ladies  escorted  bv  smart  ofhcers,  alongside  big 
Turkomans  in  nudberry-coloin-ed  (Iressing-gowns  and  enormous 
hats  of  shaggy  l)lack  sheepskin,  their  bare  feet  thrtist  into  thick 
leather  shoes. 

From  Askhahad  a  carriage  road  of  one  hundred  and  seventy 
miles  runs  across  the  Persian  frontier  to  Meshed,  a  town  of  the 
greatest  interest  to  the  two  rival  nations  of  Asia.    It  has  a  flourish- 
ing trade  with  Russia,  Afghanistan,  and  thence  with  India  and 
Bokhara.     After  Mecca  and   Kerbela  (near  Baghdad)  it  is  the 
holiest  goal  of  Moslem  pilgrims,  of  whom   100,000  are  said  to 
visit  the  tomb  of  the  imam  Reza  every  year.     The  Persian  schis- 
matic Mohammedans  have  their  headcpiarters  there  in  a  moscpie 
whose  doors  are  studded  with  rubies,  and  whose  library  contains 
over  a  thousand  Korans.     P>ut  far  more  important  than  either 
commerce  or  creed,   Meshed  "the  Holy"  is  only  one  hundred 
and  ninety-five  miles  from  Herat  as  the  crow  tlies,  and  a  road 
two  hundred  and  thirty  miles  long  connects  the  prosperous  Per- 
sian town  and  the  Afghan  fortress  supposed  to  be  the  kev  to  the 
invasion   of   India.     Theref(M-e    Russia  and    England   keep   very 
active  rival  intelligence  departments  there  and   struggle  diplo- 
matically for  influence.     The  proximity  of  Meshed  has  perhaps 


THE    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


239 


something  to  do  with  the  fact  that  Askhabad  is  the  military  cen- 
tre of  this  part  of  Russian  Central  Asia,  with  a  garrison  of  10,000 
men  and  stores  of  every  kind  on  a  war  footing.  A  few  years  ago 
the  tea  and  indigo  of  India  used  to  supply  Central  Asia  from 
this  centre,  but  when  Russia  became  paramount  here  her  first 
care  was  to  destroy  l>ritish  trade  by  excessive  duties  and  even 
direct  prohibition,  and  in  this  task  she  has  been  only  too  suc- 
cessful. 

After  Askhabad  the  desert  once  more,  till  at  last  cultivated, 
irrigated  land  appears,  and  at  each  little  station  is  a  great  heap 
of  bales  of  cotton,  for  the  harvest  has  just  been  gathered,  await- 
ing transport.  It  has  come  for  the  most  part  on  camels,  and 
while  their  owners  chat  these  are  tethered  in  a  quaint  manner, 
tied  nose  and  tail  in  a  vicious  circle,  so  that  each  is  fast  betw'een 
two  others.  Midway  in  the  burnt  plain  is  a  magnificent  old  fort- 
ress, its  good  preservation  telling  how  few  years  have  passed 
since  these  same  plains  held  the  wild  life  of  immemorial  time. 
A  belt  of  fertile  land  extends  for  fifteen  miles  from  these  moun- 
tains to  the  south,  deliciously  green  in  spring,  but  now  only  cov- 
ered with  dwarfed  scrub — tamarisk,  I  think.  In  summer  the  heat 
is  terrible,  rising  to  155°  at  midday,  and  even  now%  in  mid- 
November,  one  is  glad  to  get  out  of  the  sun. 

At  nine  o'clock  at  night  and  556  miles  from  our  starting- 
point,  another  sensation.  Most  readers  will  remember  hov/ 
the  word  "  Merv  "  once  rang  through  England,  thanks  to 
OT^onovan  and  Marvin  and  Vambery,  as  the  possible  cause 
of  war  with  Russia,  whose  absorption  of  Central  Asia  brought 
her  here  in  1884 — just  a  year  before  Parliament,  at  Glad- 
stone's behest,  voted  £11,000,000  of  war-money  at  a  sitting 
in  view  of  Russia's  next  step  south;  how  the  fears  of  some  peo- 
ple that  Russia  meant  to  seize  it,  and  beyond  it,  all  Central  Asia, 
gave  rise  to  the  sarcastic  adjective  "  mervousness  ";  how  Russia 
assured  us  that  she  did  not  mean  to  take  it;  how  she  took  it 
soon  afterwards;   and  how  she  built  from  it  a  line  with  no  other 


240 


ALL   THI",    RUSSIAS 


;1, 


h    t 


possible  o])ject  hut,  .should  need  ari^e.  to  hurry  troops  toward 
India.  Well,  tlie  train  ^^laekeii^  speed  on  the  second  evening, 
draws  tip  to  a  loui^  platform  full  oi  brilliant  uniforms  whose 
wearers  are  eseortini^-  elegant  ladies,  while  a  band  strikes  u|)  a 
gay  tune,  and  your  window  stops  exactly  opposite  the  word 
'' Mere  "  o\er  the  centi-al  doorwaw  N'ou  cannot  (piite  believe 
it.  Ikit  it  is  a  fact,  for  the  whole  oasis  of  Merv,  one  of  the  most 
fertile  spots  in  the  world,  is  as  Russian  as  Ri^a.  and  when 
you  say  "  Merv  "  in  Central  Asia  you  mean  a  loni;-,  low,  neat 
stone  railway  station,  lit  1)\  a  score  of  bri_L;ht  lamj)s  in  a  row, 
where  the  train  chani^es  enoines.  while  in  a  busy  tele<;ra])h  oftice 
a  dozen  operators  sit  before  their  clicking  instruments;  and  if 
yoti  are  a  Rtissian  ohicer  or  oft'icial  you  mean  also  a  brand-new 
town  where  a  pestilent  malarial  ivwv  i^  sure  to  catch  \uu  sooner 
or  later,  and  ver\'  likel\-  to  kill  \-ou. 

lUit  Merv  has  long  ceased  to  lie  a  Ru^^ian  botmdarv.  for  in 
the  dark  \-ou  can  see  a  branch  line  of  rai!wa\-  stealing  sotitli- 
ward  acros>  the  {)la!n.  Thi^  i>  tlie  famous  Mnrgliab  1 'ranch,  the 
strategical  litie  i^\  (»ne  hundi-cd  and  nnu-t\-  nnks  along  the-  rix'cr 
to  the  place  tlie  Ivu-^Kin-  i-all  Kii-hkni-ki  I 'o^t.  cIoqc  tr.  tlie 
frontier  (ff  .Xii^liani-t  an.  a  ^i]i>rl  di^iancr  fr*  mi  Kushk  it-clf  and 
(inl)-  eight}-  miles  from  lluiaL.^  d'hr  Kn-Han-  k<Tp  ihi-  line 
nli^ohitcK-  secret,  no  perni!--iot]  !.>  fra\rl  b\  n  haxinL:-  cwv  i.ren 
granted    t<*   a   Inrri-iirr.       M\    ..wn    prrnii-M.M)    f<  .r   LV-iitrai   A>ia 


read.   '*  W'uh  tlie   ewrplion  of  the    ^k.H"" 


lab 


Ih-nnch." 


1  his  line  1-  piifelv  -tralrgic  auil  militarw      Xeitlier  ira<le 


n*  >r 


agriculture  is  ser\-e(l  b\-  it;  iMr  would  an\l)oil\-  e\er 


)U\-  a 


ticket 


»e  l)et(  t!"e   ]<  )ng. 


by  it,  if  it  were  oprn  to  all  the  world,  as  it  ma\ 
Moreover,  it  runs  through  such  a  fe\er  haunted  district  that  Rus- 
sian carpenters,  who  can  earn  two  rouble^  a  da\-  on  it.  throw  up 
the  job  and  go  back  to  earn  tifty  kopeck.s  at  home.     Idie  line  is 


*  '! 


This  line  has  siiuH-  been  prolDnjjjrii  a  tt-w  niik-s  to  Ciiaht-l  Dokhteran,  on  the  ver)- 
frontier,  and  a  t)ranch  is  t)uildin-  throti-h  I'enideh  to  .Maruchak,  where  the  Murghab 
River  crosses  the  frontier. 


THE    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


241 


simplv  a  deliberate  military  measure  against  Great  Britain.  It 
serves  at  present  only  the  purpose  of  facilitating  the  invasion  of 
India,  or  rather  of  enal)ling  Russia  to  squeeze  England  by  pre- 
tending to  ])repare  the  hrst  steps  of  an  invasion  of  India,  when- 
ever such  a  i)retence  may  facilitate  her  diplomacy  in  Europe. 
In  simple  truth,  it  places  Herat  at  her  mercy.  The  ]\Ierv-Kushk 
line,  1  may  add,  is  now  completed,  and  two  regular  trains  a  week 
run  over  it,  at  the  rate  of  something  less  than  ten  miles  an 
hour,  reaching  the  Afghan  frontier  terminus  in  eighteen  hours. 


A  Glass  of  Tea  While  the  Train  Stops. 

The  count r\-  on  both  sides  of  it  is  a  desert,  with  tufts  of  hardy 
scrub.  Wild  pig  al)oun(l,  and  ])heasants,  of  which  this  country 
is  the  original  home.  The  fever  I  have  spoken  of  attacks  a 
man  suddenly,  the  s])leen  swells,  he  turns  as  yellow  as  in  jaun- 
dice, becomes  unconscious  on  the  second  day,  and  then  recovers 
or  dies.  Those  workinsf  on  the  railwav  sav  that  recovery  de- 
pends  upon  whether  there  is  a  train  immediately  after  the  attack 
to  take  you  to  the  hospital  at  Merv.  If  you  have  just  missed 
the  l)i- weekly  train,  you  die.     But  the  epidemic  will  doubtless 


'■'  -HTi—'f^  .V-i'^if  r  ■>"»  liJ  .»i.'— ii  C^Vi,  >  r<S;  ■  . 


ll 


m^ 

m 


r 


i 


'III 


O    1    1 


ALL     IHl'.    RLSSLVS 


diminish  in  frc(|iiciicv  and  in  xniilcncc  as  iliere  is  less  necessity 
to  (li«4"  np  the  i^Tonnd.  In  the  l^a^t  e\en  at  llon^  Koni^,  lor 
instance — stirring  of  the  soil  ahn()>t  ah\a}s  proihices  ilhiess. 
Arnieinans,  the  pioneors  of  trade  ni  this  part  of  the  world,  are 
tryino^  to  open  np  tracie  at  Knshk  Lost,  hnt  huherto  with  httle 
success.  From  the  Russian  post  the  Af,L;han  frontier  is  visible, 
and  the  Russian  sentries  can  be  discerned  with  the  naked  eye. 
There  is  one  line  of  them  on  the  top  rid^e  of  the  hills,  and  an- 
other upon  the  slope  beyond.  I>eyond  these  are  the  Afghan 
posts. 

Kushkinski   Lost  itself  consists  of  about   a  score  of  houses, 
with  something  like  fifty  white  inhal)itants.  apart  from  soldiers. 
There  are  no  white  women  in  the  settlement,  and  nothing  like  a 
hotel.     The  ofhcers  have  established  a  little  military  club,  where 
they  take  their  meals.     During  the  great  heat  of  summer,  ice,  or 
rather  snow,   is  brought   regularly   by   train.      At   first   the  only 
fortification,   I  was  told,  consisted  of  a  series  of  detached  ram- 
parts, within  which  the  artillery   was  c|uartere(l.     The   infantry 
and  Cossack  barracks,  and  the  ofhcers'  (piarters — little  grey  one- 
story  houses—are  in  the  town.     A  temporary  line  of  rails,  how- 
ever, had  been  laid  down  from  the  main  line  to  convey  material 
for  building  a  second  fort,  on  the  right  of  the  terminus,  and  two 
hundred  labourers  had  been  brought— which  meant  that  the  o-ar- 
rison  was  to  be  increased.     There  is  also  a  considerable  railway 
workshop,  and  a  depot,  where  presumably  rails,  etc.,  are  kept 
in  readiness  for  a  hasty  i)rolongation  of  the  line — precisely  as  is 
the  case  at  our  own  terminus  on  the  Indian  frontier.     I  read,  by 
the  way,  in  a  recent  work,   that   the  relations  of  the  Russians 
and  the  Afghans  are  very  friendly.     The  contrary  is  the  case. 
Russians   described   the   Afghans   to   me   as   '*  verv   dano-erous  '* 
and  told  me  that  it  had  hap])ene(l  more  than  once  that  Russian 
offtcers  out  shooting  had  accidentally  crossed  the  boundary  and 
been  pursued  by  armed  Afghans.     The  Afghan  posts  let  nobody 
pass,  and  no  trade,  and  there  is  no  custom-house  of  any  kind. 


THL    TRANS-CASLIAN    RAILWAY 


'^43 


Altogether,  this  particular  Russian  outpost  of  Empire  must  be 
about  as  disagreeable  a  place  of  exile  as  can  be  imagined — which 
is  precisely  what  officers  who  have  been  stationed  there  say  about 
it.  Of  course,  I  did  not  myself  see  any  of  the  things  I  have  men- 
tioned, but  they  were  matters  of  common  conversation  with  my 
acquaintances  in  the  train. 

Most  interesting  of  all,  however,  as  one  stands  here  on  the  edge 
of  the  platform  and  looks  down  the  few  hundred  yards  of  this  mys- 
terious Merv-Kushk  line  visible  in  the  dark,  is  to  reflect  that  if  the 
future  brings  war  betw-een  England  and  Russia  its  roaring  tide 
will  flow  over  these  very  rails  for  the  invasion  of  India,  and  that 
if  it  brings  peace  this  will  be  a  station  on  the  through  line  be- 
tween Calais  and  Kandahar.  Some  day  surely,  though  it  may 
be  long,  long  hence,  and  only  when  tens  of  thousands  of  Rus- 
sian and  British  soldier-ghosts  are  wandering  through  the  shades 
of  Walhalla,  the  traveller  from  London  will  hear  on  this  very  plat- 
form the  cry,  "  Change  here  for  Calcutta!  " 


For  some  time  after  Merv  the  train  passes  through  this  world- 
famed  oasis,  then  for  more  than  fifty  miles  it  traverses  the  heart- 
breaking desert  of  sand.  Central  Asia,  in  fact,  as  one  views  it 
from  the  train,  is  a  desert  broken  by  oases.  Where  a  river  de- 
scends from  the  mountains  on  the  south,  and  is  caught  and  meas- 
ured and  allotted  and  distributed  till  it  sometimes  disappears  al- 
together in  the  sands,  there  is  fertility — luxurious  vegetations 
and  enormous  crops,  such  fertility,  indeed,  as  hardly  exists  else- 
where. The  moment  the  irrigated  area  is  passed,  the  burnt 
desert  begins  again,  where  nothing  grows  but  stunted  tamarisk 
and  the  prickly  camel's  thorn — indeed,  for  hour  after  hour  one 
often  sees  not  even  these  poor  struggles  after  plant  life.  Here, 
on  either  side,  as  far  as  the  eye  reaches,  is  a  yellow  plain  of  ribbed 
sand.  The  earth  has  surely  nothing  more  dreary  to  show,  and 
it  is  dangerous,  too,  for  the  wind  Idows  it  up  and  over  the  track, 


244 


ALL    11 II.    RUSSIAS 


f 


pi, 

it 


THE   TRANS-CASFIAN    RAILWAY 


245 


! 


and  at  the  l)est,  conipanics  of  men  niii>t  -weep  it  awaw  while  at 
the  worst  it  chokes  the  locomotive  aii.l  l.riiii4>  the  train  to  a  stand- 
stilL  Sometimes  the  wliole  service  of  the  i-aihva\-  i>  suspended 
by  such  a  wind  The  only  help  is  Unuul  in  the  saxaul,  a  stuiued, 
gnarled  hush  whose  twisted  roots  hind  the  sand  together  as 
osiers  bind  mud.     This  bcini,^  so,  1  was  astomshed  to  see  that  the 


1 

A  Mystery  in    irini-Cispia     TurkMnnn^  Pxaminin--  the  Train. 


n,'ap-  (.1  [angled  saxaul  roots 


fuel  in  the  stoves  of  tlie  trnin  \\a^ 
and  branches. 

By  and  by  vegetation  begins  again^-timidlv  at  first,  but  soon 
luxuriously,  for  we  are  on  the  edge  of  the  most  wonderful  river 
in  the  world,  not  excepting  the  Nile.  At  the  station  which  now 
bears  the  name  of  the  river.  Amu  Darya,  but  used  to  be  called 
Charjui,  one  hundred  and  hfty  miles  beyond  Merv,  we  halt  for 
twenty-five  minutes,  and  then  creep  forward  at  a  snail's  pace. 
At  first  by  close-packed  muddiouses,  deep  in  tropical  vegeta- 
tion, then  out  upon  a  wooden  bridge  over  long  mud  Hats,  then, 
barely  moving  at  all,  over  the  Amu  Darya— the  mighty  and  im- 


mortal Oxus  itself.  The  bridge  is  a  narrow,  low  way,  upon  tres- 
tles and  piles,  l)ut  it  is  one  of  the  engineering  wotiders  of  the 
world,  for  it  is  a  mile  and  three-ciuarters  long,  the  river  runs  fast 
over  its  deep  mud,  and  every  balk  of  timber — there  are  3,300 
piles  in  the  river-bed  alone — had  to  be  brought  from  Russia 
down  the  Volga  and  then  transported  these  seven  hundred  miles 
bv  rail.  It  is  as  dry  as  tinder,  for  rain  is  almost  unknown  here. 
Every  quarter  of  a  mile  there  is  a  tire  station,  with  a  great  cis- 
tern of  water  and  buckets,  over  which  stands  a  sentry  with  lixed 
bayonet.  Fire  is  the  nightmare  of  the  guardians  of  the  bridge, 
but  though  I  am  not  of  a  nervous  temperament  I  must  confess 
I  was  much  more  afraid  of  water — the  dashing,  swirling,  coffee- 
coloured  water  below,  between  us  and  which  was  such  a  narrow, 
slender  support  of  twelve-years'  old  wood,  every  single  tin]l)er 
creaking  again-t  it-  iieiglihonr  in  a  <ickening  fashion.  Without 
exaLiueraiioii,  i  sjiould  tiot  have  been  -urpn-eil  if  the  w  Ik  tie  thing 
had  collapsed  in  an  in-tant.  nnd  T  w-as  g^^^'l  to  sec  tlic  ^ohd  ground 
underneath  once  more.  The  authorities  seem  to  share  thi-  lear, 
for  our  "^pccA  wa^  ilie  -i.^ve^t  at  wliicti  ilie  engine  coiilu  move  at 
And  HI  -fjite  oif  tlie  great  cost  and  the  em|)iiness  of  ilie  Rus- 


ai! 


?3 


'^inn  official  pocket  ju-t  now  ilie\-  are  worknig  with  iiiinosi  speed 
111)011  a  new  bridge  a  cjuartcr  of  a  mile  to  the  north.  A  number 
of  hitge  iron  cyhndrical  |)iers  are  in  place,  a  dozen  engines  are 
puffing,  liuge  heaps  of  dressed  stones  and  titnbers  lie  al)0ut,  and 
an  army  of  men  is  at  work. 

I  saw  this  scene  for  the  first  time  at  sunrise,  and  I  count  that 
among  the  most  impressive  moments  of  my  life.  These  waters 
rise  mysteriously  in  the  "  Roof  of  the  World";  for  1.500  miles 
thev  roll  through  the  land  which  has  been  the  scene  of  the  most 
marvellous  human  episodes;  they  were  looked  upon  by  the  hrst 
of  mankind,  for  the  cradle  of  our  race  was  there,  and  they  have 
qualified  the  schemes  of  many  of  the  greatest;  the  legions  of  Al- 
exander and  Genghiz  Khan  and  Tamerlane  drank  at  them;  we 
hear  of  them  at  the  beginning  of  Genesis,  and  they  may  well  yet 


244 


ALL    Tin:    RUSSLIS 


1^ 


\1 


H 


and  at  the  best,  companies  of  men  must  sweep  it  awav,  while  at 
the  worst  it  chokes  the  locomotive  and  hrino-s  the  train  to  a  stand- 
still. Sometimes  the  whole  service  of  the  railway  is  suspended 
by  such  a  wind.  The  only  help  is  found  in  the  saxaul,  a  stunted, 
gnarled  bush  whose  twisted  roots  bind  the  sand  toi^ether  as 
osiers  bind  mud.    This  being  so,  1  was  astonished  to  see  that  the 


I 
A  .Mystery  in    rrans-Caspia  -  Turknm.inN  Hxamininu  the  Train. 

fuel  in  the  stoves  of  the  train  wa<  lieap.  of  tangled  ^axaul  roots 
and  branches. 

By  and  by  vegetation  begins  again— timidly  at  first,  but  soon 
luxuriously,  for  we  are  on  the  edge  of  the  most  wonderful  river 
in  the  world,  not  exce|)ting  the  Xile.  At  the  station  which  now 
bears  the  name  of  the  river,  Amu  Darya,  but  used  to  be  called 
Charjui,  one  hundred  and  hfty  miles  beyond  Merv,  we  halt  for 
twenty-five  minutes,  and  then  creej)  forward  at  a  snail's  pace. 
At  first  by  close-packed  nniddiouses,  deef)  in  tropical  vegeta- 
tion, then  out  upon  a  wooden  bridge  over  long  mud  flats,  then, 
barely  moving  at  all,  over  the  Amu  Darya— the  mighty  and  iin- 


THK    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY 


245 


mortal  Oxus  itself.  The  bridge  is  a  narrow^  low  way,  upon  tres- 
tles and  piles,  but  it  is  one  of  the  engineering  wonders  of  the 
world,  for  it  is  a  mile  and  three-quarters  long,  the  river  runs  fast 
over  its  deep  mud.  and  every  1)alk  of  timber — there  are  3,300 
piles  in  the  river-bed  alone — had  to  be  brought  from  Russia 
down  the  Volga  and  then  transported  these  seven  hundred  miles 
by  rail.  It  is  as  drv  as  tinder,  for  rain  is  almost  unknown  here. 
Every  quarter  of  a  mile  there  is  a  tire  station,  with  a  great  cis- 
tern of  water  and  buckets,  over  which  stands  a  sentry  with  fixed 
bayonet.  Fire  is  the  nightmare  of  the  guardians  of  the  bridge, 
but  though  1  am  not  of  a  nervous  temperament  I  must  confess 
I  was  much  more  afraid  of  water — tlie  dashing,  swirling,  cotiee- 
coloured  water  below,  between  us  and  wdiich  was  such  a  narrow. 
slender  >upport  of  tu'elve-years'  old  wood.,  every  single  tinilier 
creaknig  against  its  neighbour  in  a  <ickcning  fashion.  \\  ithout 
fx:ii!U"eraiinn,  I  >liould  not  hdvc  been  snr|)ri-cd  \i  the  wliole  tiling 
iiad  eo]lap-ed  in  an  in-tant.  and  I  \\;i-  glad  to  '^ce  the  ^(Aul  gri:)nnd 
underneath  once  more.  The  authorities  seem  to  share  tin-  kar, 
[mt  niir  <pQ(?(\  wa<  tile  dowt-t  ai  which  the  engine  couUl  moxc  at 
ad.  .\nd  HI  -pile  <d  the  great  cost  and  the  emptine<<  of  the  Iviis- 
>ian  official  pockia  jn>t  now  tliey  are  worknig  with  utmost  speed 
upon  a  new  bridge  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  north.  A  number 
oi  Imge  iron  cylindrical  piers  are  in  place,  a  dozen  engines  are 
pnfhng.  huge  heaps  of  dressed  stones  and  timbers  lie  al)0ut,  and 
an  army  of  men  is  at  w'ork. 

I  saw  this  scene  for  the  first  time  at  sunrise,  and  I  count  that 
among  the  most  impressive  moments  of  my  life.  Idiese  waters 
rise  mysteriously  in  the  "  Roof  of  the  World";  for  1.500  miles 
thev  roll  throucrh  the  land  w^hich  has  been  the  scene  of  the  most 
marvellous  human  episodes;  they  were  looked  upon  1)y  the  first 
of  mankind,  for  the  cradle  of  our  race  was  there,  and  they  have 
qualified  the  schemes  of  many  of  the  greatest;  the  legions  of  Al- 
exander and  Genghiz  Khan  and  Tamerlane  drank  at  them;  w^e 
hear  of  them  at  the  beginning  of  Genesis,  and  they  may  well  yet 


n 


Ci.4.6 


ALL    THi:    RUSSL^S 


[i. 


1:^ 


i.? 


be  one  of  the  pathways  of  the  last  great  war  of  human  history. 
The  railway  jars  sadly  iii)on  one's  thoughts  of  such  a  ^cene.  One 
feels  vulgar  to  pass  through  the  lieart  of  Asia,  the  mother  of  peo- 
ples, to  the  accompaniment  of  the  restaurant-car  and  the  conduc- 
tor's whistle.  The  Turkoman,  silent  in  his  dignity,  wrapped  in 
reserve  as  in  his  flowing  garments,  looking  upon  the  invading 
stranger  and  his  iron  modernities  with  inscrutable  eves— it  is  with 
him,  and  like  him,  that  one  would  wish  to  journey  here,  and  learn 
and  wonder.  Most  welcome,  therefore,  comes  the  recollection  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  noble  lines  upon  these  immemorial  waters: 

But  the  majestic  river  floated  on, 

Out  of  the  mist  and  hum  of  that  low  land, 

Into  the  frosty  starlight,  and  there  moved, 

Rejoicing,  through  the  hush'd  Chorasmian  waste, 

Under  the  solitary  moon  ;— he  tlow'd 

Right  for  the  polar  star,  past  Orgunjt- * 

Brimming,  and  bright,  and  large  ;  then  sands  begin 

To  hem  his  watery  march,  and  dam  his  streams, 

And  split  his  currents  ;  that  for  many  a  league 

The  shorn  and  parcell'd  Oxus  strains  along 

Through  beds  of  sand  and  matted  rushy  isles— 

Oxus,  forgetting  the  bright  speed  he  had 

In  his  high  mountain-cradle  in  Pamere. 

A  foil'd  circuitous  wanderer— till  at  last 

The  long'd-for  dash  of  waves  is  heard,  and  wide 

His  luminous  home  of  waters  opens,  bright 

And  tranquil,  from  whose  floor  the  new-bathed  stars 

Emerge,  and  shine  upon  the  Aral  Sea.  f 

By  breakfast  time  we  are  running  amid  houses  and  fields  and 
trees,  with  dignified  Bokharans  on  horseback  everywhere  in  sight. 
And  now  the  great  names  of  Asia  follow  fast.  Seventy  miles  be- 
yond the  Oxus,  and  seven  hundred  and  eighty  altogether,  bring 
us  to  Bokhara.  A  neat,  stone-built  station  like  Merv.  but  larger, 
a  long  row  of  droschkies  outside,  and  a  little  town  of  new  white 
houses— that  is  all  the  passing  traveller  sees.     The  old  Bokhara, 


♦  Khiva. 


t  "  Sohrab  and  Rustum. " 


THE   TRANS-CASPL^N    RAILWAY  247 

''  the  noble,"  the  seat  of  the  learning  of  Asia  nearly  a  thousand 
years  ago,  and  always  the  home  of  its  most  savage  bigotry,  the 
citv  witli  a  connected  history  of  more  than  twelve  hundred  years, 
is  eight  miles  away  in  the  fertile  land,  while  the  station  itself  is 
in  th^^e  desert.    When  they  brought  the  railway  the  Russians  were 
still  afraid  of  the  fanatical  Bokharans;   now  they  wish  they  had 
run  their  line  past  the  very  gates  of  the  city.     On  the  platform 
a  native  barber  is  rapidly  shaving  heads  with  a  huge  hatchet- 
shaped  razor.     A  woman  completely  hidden  in  a  dark  blue  gar- 
ment sits  with  her  face  to  the  wall,  while  her  husband  arranges 
cushions  and  washes  grapes,  and  then  they  proceed  to  a  breakfast 
of  fruit  and  flapjacks.     The  Turkoman  head-dress  of  shaggy 
sheepskin  has  wholly  disappeared,  and  in  place  of  it  there  are  big 
burly    Bokharans   in   enormous   white   turbans   and   khalats   of 
flowered  and  striped  cotton  over  their  tunics,  their  feet  in  elegant 
green-heeled  morocco  boots,  and  these  tucked  into  a  couple  of 
pairs  of  slippers,  one  over  the  other.    They  crowd  into  the  train 
the  moment  it  stops,  mostly  into  the  second-class  (remember 
there  is  no  first-class),  and  make  themselves  very  much  at  home. 
All  their  belongings  come  in  with  them,  packed— including,  in 
every  case,  a  long-necked  copper  water-bottle — in  a  pair  of  car- 
pet saddle-bags  slung  over  their  shoulder.     The  native  passen- 
gers leave  the  train,  and,  squatting  down  a  few  yards  beyond  the 
track,  perform  their  ceremonial  ablutions  and  pray  toward  Mecca. 
Then  they  go  over  to  the  melon-sellers  and  return  with  an  enor- 
mous water-melon  to  make  a  piccaninny  gape  with  envy,  and  this 
they  proceed  to  eat  in  the  carriage.     These  people  have  never 
been  crushed  like  the  Turkomans;  their  independence  is  still 
nominally  preserved  to  them,  for  their  own  Amir  can  have  their 
throats  cut  in  the  bazaar  at  his  pleasure,  and  their  looks  and 
actions  are  therefore  those  of  free  men.    They  behave,  in  fact,  as 
if  the  train  belonged  to  them,  and  the  unfortunate  foreigner  is 
crushed  in  his  corner— if  he  has  been  lucky  enough  to  keep  a 
corner — by  mere  weight  of  humanity. 


248 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


The  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  are  tlie  most  striking  feature 
of  the  landscape  as  we  proceed,  and  among  the  hitter  are  huge 
billy-goats,  as  big  as  a  pony  and  twice  as  thick,  with  horns  a  yard 
long  tossing  over  them.     Then  come  thehrst  really  cultivated 
fields  we  have  seen,  surrounded  by  low  mud  walls,  some  under 
water  and  all  cleverly  irrigated,  with  winter  rice  or  corn  just 
coming  up.     After  a  while  the  water-supply  stops — not  a  l)lade 
can  be  grown  in  this  country  without  irrigation,  therefore  the 
water-supply  is  subject  to  the  most  rigorous   supervision  and 
scrupulous  distribution,  what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  '*  the  shorn 
and  parcell'd  Oxus,"  in  a  line  as  remarkal)le  for  its  exact  accu- 
racy as  for  its  perfect  music — the  desert  regains  its  sway,  and  for 
hours   we  pass  over   an  absolutely   flat   plain,   unbroken   at   an 
horizon,  without  a  living  thing  upon  it  but  tufts  of  coarse  grass 
a  few  inches  high.     Then  gradually  signs  of  the  neighbourhood 
of  a  river  reappear,  willows  and  alders  and  big  trees  like  maples, 
irrigation  channels,  planted  fields,  winter  crops  just  green  above 
the  surface.     Ruined  strongholds,  similar  to  those  one  sees  in 
the  Balkans,  where  a  whole  village  had  to  be  ready  to  run  for 
safety  against  Turkish  marauders,  tell  their  own  tale  of  the  rich 
life  hereabouts  and  the  state  of  society  in  years  long  past.    Some 
of  these  little  castles  are  now  inhabited  by  villagers,  and  some 
are  in  almost  perfect  preservation,  walls,  gates,   towers,  cren- 
elated battlements  and  all.     At  half-past  seven,  nine  hours  after 
leaving  Bokhara,  and  934  miles  from  the  Caspian,  the  train  stops, 
and  opposite  my  window  is  the  magic  name  **  Samarkand,"  red- 
olent of  the  East  and  its  roses,  the  city  which  Tamerlane  made 
the  Asiatic  Athens,  alike  for  the  renown  of  its  learning  and  the 
magnificence  of  its  monuments.     A  glimpse  of  a  wooden  town 
in  a  park  of  verdure,  a  twenty  minutes'  halt,  a  capital  meal  in 
the  restaurant,  and  we  are  off  again.     Of  course,  I  lingered  in 
these  famous  cities  on  my  return— now  I  go  straight  through. 
Five  hours  later  we  are  at  the  junction  of  Chernayevo,  where 
the  line  divides,  one  branch  going  northward  to  Tashkent,  the 


THE   TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY  249 

other  continuing  eastward  to  Andijan,  in  the  heart  of  the  cot- 
ton country.  At  last,  sixty-six  hours  and  1,153  miles  from 
Krasnovodsk,  the  train  stops  for  good,  in  the  heart  of  Asia,  at 
the  large,  handsome  station  of  Tashkent,  the  administrative  cen- 
tre of  Turkestan  and  the  residence  of  the  Governor-General  of 
the  whole  Trans-Caspian  region. 

The  following  condensed  time-table  will  show  the  reader  this 
jo,,rney-the  most  remarkable  train-journey  in  the  world-at  a 
glance: 

HOUR  OF  ARRIVAU 

„„.s.        -"--  (departure)     3.°o  P-M. 

Krasnovodsk ^     ^  ^ 

2.36  A.M. 

208     Kizil-Arvat . .  .  ^r 

....     9-45  A.M. 
343     Askhabad ^_^p_^^_ 

556     Merv..... ;;_    _   ^„^^,p.„. 

C74     Bairam-Ali ^  »  ,, 

^'                                _,      .   ..  C.07  A.M. 

706     Amu-Uarya  (Charjui) ^ 

'  10.04  A.M. 

78°  '^ol^hara _^,_ 

886  Katti-Kurgan ^  ^^  ^  ^_ 

934  Samarkand ,,.40  P.M. 

'°°5  Jisak 2.55A,M. 

,059  Chernayevo "  ^^^^^^_ 

1153  Tashkent 

(departure)     400  a.m. 

,059    Chernayevo (  ^^^^_^^_ 

no8  Khodjent ,0.55  A.M. 

,,77  Kokand ^^^p^^_ 

,226  Margelan •••  ^^p^^_ 

1261  Andijan 

The  principal  stations  are  thus  sixteen,  but  the  total  num- 
ber of  stations  is  ninety-six-seventy-seven  to  the  junction  of 
Chernayevo  five  to  Tashkent  on  the  northern  branch,  and  four- 
teen to  Andijan  on  the  eastern  branch.  The  total  length  of  the 
railway,  including  both  branches,  is  2,053  versts— 1.35.S  miles 
and  the  average  speed,  from  Krasnovodsk,  the  startmg-po.nt  on 
the  Caspian,  to  Tashkent,  the  northern  terminus,  including  all 
stoppages,  is  seventeen  and  one-half  miles  an  hour.     But  ex- 


*} 


»  i 


i 


i! 


*'i 


I^O 


ALL   THK    RUSSL4.S 


eluding  the  eight  schechiled  slops,  amounting  to  two  hours  and 
twenty-five  minutes,  and  allowing  three  nnnutes  at  each  of  the 
other 'stations,  the  actual  average  speed  while  running  work,  out 
at  over  twenty  nnles  an  hour— a  highly  credital)le  i)erformance 
and  much  superior  to  that  of  the  'rrans-Sil)erian  Railwav. 

Merely  as  a  railway  the  Trans-Caspian  is  in  no  way  exiraor- 
dinarv.  Except  for  the  absence  of  lal)our,  timber,  and  water, 
which  necessitated  a  rolling  camp  following  upon  the  heels  of 
the  working  party,  and  the  passage  of  the  sand  desert,  it  pre- 


Bri':ui-v'!k""^  nt  a  *=:«;iti<-Mi. 


sented  no  diHicuhic-.  aii^l  the  .:)iily  cn-iiu'cring  cxploii  i-  tlie 
bridge  nver  the  Oxus.  lUii.  a^  I  >aid  :i\  the  beginning.  \hc  :\>- 
toundmg  fact  is  that  h  is  here  at  all.  It  wa.  l)egun  on  June  30, 
i88v.  Merv  wa>  reached  in  1uly.  1886:  the  Amu-Darva.  ni 
June,  1887;  the  bridge,  4,f)00  yards  long,  was  opened  for  t rathe 
in  January.  1888;  Samarkand  reached  in  May,  1888:  and  Tash- 
kent soon  afterward.  Thus  twenty  ye:irs  ago  it  was  not  thcnight 
of  as  it  exists  to-day;  the  notion  of  it  was  even  strenuously  repu- 
diated by  Russian  statesmen  when  ITigland  grew  nervous  al)out 
their  intentions.     Twentv-hve  years  ago  Samarkand  and  Tash- 


>    .1 
^  fl 


"'  I'll 


I  1 

rt 


THK    TRANS-CASPIAN    RAILWAY  253 

kent  were  onlv  to  be  reached  by  adventurous  travellers  carry- 
in.,  their  lives  in  their  hands;  Bokhara  was  as  dangerous  and  as 
inaccessil,le  as  the  capital  of  Thibet  is  to-day;    And.jan  was  un- 
hear.l  of-    En-lan<l  would  not  have  tolerated  for  a  moment  the 
idea  of  the  absorption  of  all  Central  Asia  by  Russia.    Now  Rus- 
5i^  h^,,  ,t  all-for  ever,  beyond  the  possibility  of  internal  revolt  or 
external  attack;    you  "book-  to  Kokand  as  easily  as  to  Kent 
or  Kentuckv;   you  are  as  safe  there  as  in  Calcutta  or  Colorado; 
the  railwav'has  brought  Russian  troops  once  more  c  ose  to  the 
frontier  of  China,  and  actually  to  the  frontier  of  Afghanistan; 
most  wonderful  of  all,  this  line,  planned  and  carried  out  as  a 
purelv  militarv  work,  is  already  paying  its  way  handsomely,  and 
L  been  trai.ferred  from  military  to  civil  ad-in  strators.     And 
it  has  brought  peace  and  commerce  and  civihsation,  as  Ru..a 
understands  the  word,  to  a  vast  region  where  so  few  >     r.  ago 
utter  barbarism  reigned.    The  military  advantages  it  confer    are 
too  <^reat  and  too  conspicuous  to  call  for  mention      It  is  a  dar- 
g  rnterprise.  magnificently  executed.    Physical  dithculties  and 
diplomatic  obstacles  have  been  alike  overcome  or  disregarded^ 
Moreover,  it  is  but  the  beginning  of  what  is  to  be  m  this  par      f 
the  world.    No  thoughtful  foreigner  can  make  the  journey  w.th- 

ut  conceiving  a  profound  admiration  of  Russia's  courage  an 
a  profound  respect  for  her  powers.     Russians  have  eve      r^gh 
to  be  proud  of  their  Trans-Caspian  conquest  and  its  s>mbol 
the  railway;    for  the  rest  of  the  world  it  is  half-a-dozen  object- 
lessons  in  one. 


!  'I 


!i 


m 


t.  i': 


'  ,♦   t  *;r-     *  ft- 


.  T  -_*.^.»— ^A.i^-= 


CHAPTER   XVII 


11 


RUSSIAN    EXPANSION    IN    CENTRAL    ASIA 

THE  railway  which  Russia  has  pushed  forward  through  the 
region  of  tropic  heat,  has  worked  a  revolution  not  less  than 
that  which  she  has  thrust  across  the  region  of  Arctic  cold.    Indeed 
the  Trans-Caspian   Railway   has   accomplished   more  than   the 
Trans-Siberian,  for  whereas  the  remotest  districts  of  Siberia  have 
been  accessible  for  generations  to  anybody  who  had  time  and 
endurance  enough  to  undertake  a  journey  of  many  weeks  in 
tarantass  or  sleigh,  Central  Asia  a  few  years  ago  was  hermetically 
sealed  except  to  the  courageous  few  who,  knowing  the  languages, 
were  prepared  to  penetrate  it  in  disguise,  at  the  risk  of  torture 
and  death,  beyond  the  reach  of  any  possible  succour  or  rescue  in 
case  of  mishap.     Moreover,  in  Siberia,  there  was  always  river 
transport  in  summer,  slow,  but  cheap  and  safe;   in  Central  Asia 
the  camel  was  the  only  carrier.     Therefore  the  Trans-Caspian 
railway  was  destined  l)y  nature  to  have  a  revolutionary  effect, 
and  this  has  been  even  more  than  was  foreseen.     Not  to  burden 
these  pages  with  figures,  I  may  say  that  in  1885,  two  years  be- 
fore  the    railway   reached    Samarkand,   the    total   imports   and 
exports  of  the  province  of  Turkestan  amounted  to  40475  ^^^^^r 
while  in    1896,  after   the   railway   had  been  in  operation  eight 
years,  they  had  risen  to  159^229  tons,  and  the  increase  is  pro- 
ceeding rapidly  and  steadily.     In  1897,  the  district  of  Andijan 
alone  exported    19,000  tons  of  cotton,   and  along  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  line  I  saw  acres  and  acres  of  bales  awaiting  ship- 
ment, w^hile  everyw^here  }  heard  complaints  of  the  insufficiency 
of  rolling  stock  to  meet  the  demands  of  growers.     Yet  the  Ime 
itself  is  laid  as  in  Russia,  except   for  the  first  hundred  miles, 


RUSSIAN   EXPANSION   IN   CENTRAL  ASIA    ^55 

where  the  rails  are  the  old  Hght  ones  originally  laid  to  Uzun- 
Ada-  the  roadway  is  solidly  ballasted;  and  the  speed,  as  1 
have'  shown.  ,s  good.  The  mcome  from  freight  and  passengers 
is  not  vet  enough,  of  course,  to  pay  interest  on  the  whole 
capital  'expenditure,  but  it  more  than  pays  all  workmg  ex- 
penses and  for  the  rest  Russia  has  the  enormous  strategical 
advantages  it  gives  her,  and  the  certainty  that  the  Pecumary  re^ 
turns  will  be  greater  every  year.  The  gross  receipts  for  1899 
were  fjgc^say  $3,ooo-per  mile,  and  the  total  movement  of 

'"'RusfatTot'srtisiied.  however,  with  the  brilliat^t  results  she 
has  achieved-British  trade,  once  so  flourishing,  ^-en  from  Cen- 
tral Asia;  a  great  domestic  trade  created;  Trans-Casp.a,  Bokhara. 
Turkestan  closely  connected  with  European  Russia;   a  railway 
station  placed  upon  the  Afghan  frontier;  and  the  rich  province 
of  Khorassan  as  good  as  annexed.     As  usual,  it  is  a  supposed 
strategic  necessity  that  is  urging  her  on.    At  present,  ,n  tne  eyes 
of  he;  strategists,  the  Trans-Caspian  is  an  isolated  railway.    It 
depends  upon  the  military  district  of  the  Caucasus  alone.    If  a 
Russian  army  is  ever  required  in  Central  Asia-a  possibility  which 
every  Russian  strategist  feels  compelled  to  contemplate--it  wi  1 
be  a  great  one,  it  will  demand  vast  quantities  of  supplies  behind  it. 
and  both  men  and  materiel  will  be  wanted  quickly.    Taking  Mos- 
cow or  Warsaw  as  the  military  centre  of  Russia,  this  movement 
would  have  to  take  place,  as  things  are  now,  by  the  rail  route 
of  Rostof.  Vladikavkaz,  Petrofsk,  Baku,  thence  across  the  Cas- 
pian, and  another  seven  or  eight  hundred  miles  to  where  the 
troops  were  wanted-a  long  and  costly  journey,  and  withou 
sufficient  steamer  accommodation  on  the  Caspian  Sea.    By  rail 
to  Samara  or  Saratof,  and  thence  down  the  Volga  and  across  the 
Caspian  to  Baku,  would  be  even  longer  in  point  of  fme.    Why 
does  Russia  think  her  troops  must  be  mor€  quickly  moved  than 
either  of  these  two  routes  would  allow?    She  knows  that  she  was 
no  invasion  from  India  to  fear,  and  that,  whether  her  forces  were 


II 


256 


ALL   THE    RUSSL^iS 


:i 


I'M 
Ul. 


i 


gathered  quickly  or  slowly,  they  would  find  the  same  military 
concentration  awaiting  them  on  the  Indian  frontier  or  in  Afghan- 
istan. 

The  explanation  is  simple,  and  has  recently  been  put  forward 
in  an  almost  semi-official  manner  in  Russia.*  It  is  an  absolutely 
determined  part  of  her  policy  to  have  an  outlet  on  the  Persian 

Gulf to  carry  her  southwestern  frontier  to  the  warm  water.f 

With  her  present  railway  system,  however,  she  does  not  feel 
strong  enough  to  meet  the  opposition  that  this  stej:) — practically 
the  annexation  of  Persia— might  provoke.     The  definite  project 

•  See  T/ie  Shortest  Railway  Route  from  Central  Europe  to  Central  Asia  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1899)  and  R.  E.  C.  Long,  "  Russian  Railway  Policy  in  Asia,"  Fortnightly  Re- 
view, December,  1899. 

t  It  may  be  remarked  that  Russian  writers  have  ])een  for  some  time  urging  upon 
the  Russian  Government  the  necessity  of  pushing  a  railway  to  the  Indian  Ocean  with- 
out delay.  For  instance,  Professor  Hermann  P.runnhofer.  of  St.  Petersburg,  m  a 
volume  of  essays  called  "Russia's  Hand  over  Asia,"  published  three  years  ago, 
advocated  the  seizure  of  the  little  Persian  seaport  of  Pender  Jesseh,  near  Ormuz,  as 
an  offset  to  the  expected  British  occupation  of  P.ender  Abbas.      He  wrote: 

"  Bender  Jesseh  is,  so  to  speak,  the  Russian  Vladivostok  on  the  Indian  Ocean.  If 
Western  Siberia  and  Central  Asia  are  not  to  be  excluded  from  the  great  trade  of  the 
world  in  future,  they  must  endeavour  to  come  into  direct  communication  with  the 
Indian  Ocean.  Gigantic  as  the  advantages  are  which  the  Siberian  Railway  will  confer 
on  the  Russian  P:mpire,  it  will  in  the  future  not  be  able  to  meet  the  still  more  gigantic 
demands  which  will  be  made  upon  it  by  international  traffic,  the  produce  of  Russo- 
Siberian  and  Chinese  soil,  the  industries,  and  the  civil  and  military  administrations. 
A  second  Pacific  railway  through  Siberia,  analogous  to  the  three  Pacific  railways 
running  through  North  America,  is  absolutely  impossible.  If  Russia,  therefore, 
wishes  to,  and  will,  safeguard  the  future,  the  centre  of  her  Empire— viz.,  Western 
Siberia  and  Central  Asia— she  must,  in  the  first  instance,  keep  open  the  access  to  the 
Indian  Ocean.  The  railway  to  Pender  Jesseh  will  probably  start  from  Askhabad, 
south-east,  via  Kotchan,  to  Meshed  and  Herat;  then  curve  westward  to  Pirjand, 
cross  the  terrible  Lut  Desert,  and  reach  Kerman.  From  here  it  will  run  to  Pender 
Jesseh,  after  overcoming  considerable  difficulties.  The  harbour  of  this  commercial 
town  is  good,  and  only  open  to  south-east  winds.  The  anchorage  is  five  metres  deep 
at  one  and  one-half  kilometres  distance  from  the  shore,  and  eight  metres  deep  at  three 
kilometres  distance.  Pender  Jesseh  is  connected  by  a  regular  weekly  steamship 
service  with  Kurachi  and  Bombay  on  the  east,  and  with  Pushire  and  Busra  on  the 
west." 

This  railway,  he  added,  would  have  its  greatest  value  in  rendering  Russia 
"entirely  independent  of  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Suez  Canal."  And  in  this  connec- 
tion it  is  a  curious  fact  that  Suez  Canal  shares  fell  when  the  concession  for  the 
Baghdad  railway  was  announced. 


RUSSIAN   EXPANSION   IN   CENTRAL  ASIA    257 

of  such  a  raihvav  would  (unless  a  preliminary  agreement  had 
been  reached),  precipitate  hostile  action  by  England:  it  would  m 
all  probability  cause  a  Mohammedan  rising;  like  the  Trans-Cas- 
pian  the  railway  would  be  isolated  from  Europe,  and  moreoyer 
it  would  be  open  to  military  attack  from  Egypt  and  India.    Most 
important  consideration  of  all,  Germany  stands  possessed  de  jure 
of  the  right  of  which  Russia  is  hurrying  to  become  possessed 
de  facto,  namely,  to  build  a  railway  connecting  the  present  Eu- 
ropean system  with  the  Persian  Gulf.     Russia's  fear  is  mtense, 
therefore,  that  Germany,  or  England  and  Germany  m  co-opera- 
tion, will  create  direct  transit  between  Europe  and  India,  and 
will  do  this  before  she  herself  is  in  a  position  either  to  prevent  it 
or  to  offer  an  alternatiye.    For  the  Russian  view  is  that  the  trade 
of  the  world  is  insufficient  to  support  two  railway  connections  be- 
tween Europe  and  India,  and  that  therefore  whenever  one  such 
connection  is  made,  any  other  becomes  impossible.     And  this 
connection  Russia  has  always  been  determined  to  have  for  her- 
self    The  answer  to  the  above  question,  therefore,  is  this:  Rus- 
sia is  extremely  anxious  to  extend  her  railway  system  in  Central 
Asia,  (I)  to  bring  her  military  centres  into  direct  connection  with 
the  Afghan  and  Persian  frontiers,  in  view  of  possible  hostilities 
with  England;  (2)  to  secure  for  herself  the  future  railway  trade- 
route  between  Europe  and  India,  by  offering  a  shorter  and 
cheaper  line  before  the  alternative  route  via  Baghdad  is  con- 
structed;   (3)  by  thus  rendering  the  construction  of  this  latter 
railway  an  unprofitable  undertaking,  to  remove  the  one  fatal 
obstacle  to  an  ultimate  port  for  herself  upon  the  Persian  Gulf; 
(4)  to  develop  further  her  own  Central  Asian  territories.    From 
a  Russian  point  of  view  the  reasons  are  certainly  convincing. 

The  German  project  is  so  important,  in  itself,  as  afifecting  the 
future  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  and  as  possibly  compromising 
gravely  the  relations  between  the  two  Empires,  that  all  students 
of  foreign  affairs  are  watching  its  development  with  great  atten- 
tion and  I  may  pause  a  moment  here  to  give  a  brief  account  of  it. 


i 


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\     i 


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2S8 


ALL   THI,    UrSSlAS 


hi 


I 


From  the  time  of  the  Armenian  massacres,  when  Germany 
so  conspicuously  declined  to  join  in  any  coercive  measures,  tlie 
relations  of  the  Kaiser  and  the  Sultan  have  grown  steadily  more 
intimate,  as  exhibited  during  the  war  with  Greece,  and  in  the 
former's  triumphal  visits  to  Constantinople  and  Jerusalem.     The 
climax— assuredly  foreseen  and  planned— came  in  the  signature, 
in  December,  1899,  of  the  concession  to  a  German  company  of 
the  right  to  build  a  railway  across  Asia  Minor  to  Baghdad,  with 
an  obvious  ultimate  terminus  in  the  great  harl)()ur  of  Koweit.  at 
the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf.     The   Russian   Amba>sa(l()r  had 
moved  heaven  and  earth  to  prevent  this  concession  being  given 
to  Germany,  and  a  British  syndicate  had  even  offered  to  con- 
struct the  line  without  any  State  guarantee  at  all.     But  so  power- 
ful was  the  combination  of  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein,  the 
German  Ambassador  in  Constantinople,  and  I3r.  von  Siemens, 
the  director  of  the  Deutsche  Bank,  that  they  not  only  obtained 
the  concession  but  also  in  it  an  undertaking  from  the  l^u'kish 
Government  to  pay  to  the  Company  a  kilometrical  guarantee  or 
subsidy  of  £1,000  per  mile  per  annum— that  is,  a  yearly  payment 
in  all  of  £240,000 — $1,200,000!    This  is  the  most  striking  diplo- 
matic success  of  modern  times,  and  the  rebuff  to  Russia  is,  of 
course,  proportionate  to  the  triumph  of  Germany.    I  say  nothing 
of  the  rebuff  to  England;   the  conduct  of  our  foreign  affairs  of 
late  has  accustomed  us  to  rebuffs.     But  it  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  the  final  struggle  for  this  great  concession  was  taking  place 
in  Constantinople  at  the  precise  time  when  the  Kaiser  was  in 
England  and  when  the  hrst  startling  disaster  of  the  Boer  \\  ar 

had  just  occurred. 

The  proposed  railway  is  an  extension  of  the  line  rapidly 
built  and  well  worked  by  Germany,  from  Ilaidar-Pasha,  on  the 
Bosphorus  (where  a  German  cotnpany  has  just  been  formed,  with 
the  Sultan's  approval,  to  develop  a  harbour),  7'ia  Lsmid,  Eskishehr, 
and  Afum  kara-hissar,  to  Konia.  The  new  line  will  proceed 
southward  to  Kerman,  at  the  foot  of  the  Taurus  Mountains,  then 


RUSSIAN    EXPANSION    EN   CENTRAE  ASIA     259 

sku-i  thi^  range  northeastward  to  Eregli,  cross  it  by  the  famous 
pass  to  Adana  (whence  there  is  already  a  short  English  line  to 
the  Mediterranean),  and  proceed  to  Tell-ha-besh  (with  a  branch 
to  Aleppo),  bridging  the  Euphrates  at  Europus,  and  via  Mosul 
(near  Xhieveh),  Tekrit,  and  Beled  (with  a  branch  to  Khannikin, 
on  the  Persian  frontier,  whence  a  line  might  profitably  be  run 
via  Kermanshahan,  Aamadan,  and  Kum,  to  Tehran)  to  Baghdad. 
Thence  the  line  will  continue  z'ia  Kerbela,  Nedjef,  and  Busra,  to 
Kozima,  at  the  head  of  the  magnificent  harbour  of  Koweit,  where 
there  is  to  be  a  German  naval  coaling-station— four  days'  steam 
from  Bombay!    To  bring  this  railway  into  connection  with  Eu- 
r()i)ean  lines  the  Bosphorus  is  to  be  si)anned  by  a  bridge  grate- 
fully named  after  the  present  Sultan,  and  a  recent  well-informed 
anonymous  writer  calculates  that  Kozima  will  be  reached  in  three 
and  a  half  days  from  Constantinople,  and  ten  days  from  Berlin. 
The  length  of  the  new  railway  will  be  1,750  mi^^s,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  concession  it  is  to  be  finished  by  1907.    But  although 
the  concession  was   signed   two   years  ago,  the   first  shovelful 
of  earth  has  yet  to  be  lifted— and  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
Turkey  is  utterly  unable  to  pay  the  guarantee  she  has  promised 
unless  she  is  permitted  by  the  Powers  to  increase  her  import 
duties  from  eight  to  eleven  per  cent.,  w^hich,  backed  of  course 
by  Germany,  she  is  now  desirous  of  doing.    But  England  has  the 
prci)on(lerant  share  of  Turkish  trade,  and  therefore  for  her  to 
consent  to  burden  her  trade  in  order  that  Germany  may  build 
a  railwav  to  rob  her  (^f  an  important  trade-route  is,  as  has  been 
said,  like  asking  her  to  contribute  to  the  cost  of  the  razor  for 
cutting  her  own   throat. 

The  harbour  of  Kow^eit  has  just  enjoyed  a  period  of  con- 
siderable diplomatic  and  naval  prominence,  unquestionably  in 
connection  with  the  development  of  the  German  scheme.  In 
January,  1900,  it  was  visited  by  a  German  mission,  accompanied 
by  the  German  Consul-General  in  Constantinople  and  several 
engineers,  including  the  chief  engineer  of  the  Baghdad  Rail- 


i  I 


ALL   THK    RUSSL\S 


m 


260 

This  mission  rcquestcl  the  Shokh  of  Koweit.  Mubarek 

n.any  the  v.llage  of  Ka.h.e.  on  the  northern  .h,  r^  o    th     K 
,,e,t  inlet      The  Sheikh  dedine.l  to  do  so.      Next    a    Itirk.s 

„■.,<  rotlected  at  Rnsra,  where  Izzet  Be%. 
force  of  3.000  --  ;;-^;f^t.,  ,,,,„,,,  ,„on  Arah.an  af- 
said  to  he  one  of  the  bultan  .   l 

f.irs    h-i<l  been  spentUn-  several  months,  and  m     U1..1 
h     T       .h  corvette  SC.al,  arr.ved   at   KoweU   ..th   so:n 

,his  force  on  board,  to  «-;>;>-  ^J^^  J  ;;,,.,.  E,.i.  of 

to  smash  ^l"^-;Vr  "/'.'''  --'-'  ^--'^  ''' 

Nejd.  having  faded.      5t,t  XNhen  the  ,„„,„,,„aer    of 

found   a    British    RtndH,at    alrea.ly    there,    the      o 
..h.ch  prolnlnted  her  from  land.n,  troops,  and        '    -'^    - 
force  was  promptly  concentrated  m  the  C.ulf.     In  mc  v  ot 
e  aion    of  Turle;  and  Ciern.any  one  nee.l  not  be  unduly  sus- 
pcCtr  suppose  that  if  the  Snltan  had  succeeded  m  occupy- 
.       ;Kowe.t,  It's  cess,on  to  Germany  would  have  '>-  t   e  nex 
steo      Those  who  have  a  taste  for  such  thmgs  w,ll  greatly  en 
;«;  the  loUowing  comment  of  the  K^ln.sC.  ZcHun,  upon  the 

""'Tn  the  political  sphere  the  Kowe.t  c.uest.on  threatens  to 
assume  a  certain  importance.     It  is  naturally  not  n.  the  mter^ 
es  Tf  Turkev,  nor  in  that  of  those  who  wUl  budd  an<,  work 
he  ra.lwav,  that  the  ternnnus.  the  excellent  harbour  of  KoweU, 
o     the  shores  of  winch  Ko.ima  Hes.  should  be  ahenate     from 
L  ,mme<Hate  sovereignty  of  Turkey.     The     Salnameh     th 
Turkish     statistical     annual,     regularly     registers     ke,we,      as 
'  Kaasa  '  and  its  Sheikh  as  a  Kamiakam.     This  clearly  shows 
that  Koweit  is  accounte.l  Turkish  territory,  although  the  exer- 
cise of  sovereign  rights  had  been  ceded  to  the  Sheikh  for  the 
tune    being.      The    question    of    the    form    in    winch    the^    Sme 
should  exercise  its  sovereigntv  mav  best  be  left  to  itselt.      I  he- 
fact  that  Koweit  belongs  to  Turkev  cannot  be  nnpugned.  and 
English  atlases  have  till  now  exhibited  no  dubiety  on  tins  pomt. 


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RAILWAY     EXPANSION      IN     CENTRAL  ASIA. 


RUSSIAN   EXPANSION   IN  CENTRAL  ASIA    261 

It  must  be  regarded  as  highly  improbable  that  England  means 
10  alter  this  situation  by  violent  means,  and  it  is  equally  ini- 
I^robable  that  the  Sultan  of  his  own  accord  will  divest  himself 
of  rights  which  are  of  great  importance  for  Turkey  and  for 
the  working  of  the  contemplated  great  railway.  In  an  epoch 
which  has  given  birth  to  PanTslamism.  a  movement  with 
manv  promising  aspects,  the  renunciation  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Sultan  over  Mahomedan  territory  in  Asia  would  be  a 
step  which  would  be  entirely  inconsistent." 

A  blind  man  could  read  between  the  lines  of  this  inspired 
utterance.  The  spectacle  of  Christian  Germany  invoking  Pan- 
Islamism  on  behalf  of  her  own  political  and  commercial  ambi- 
tions is  both  instructive  and  entertaining.* 

What  is  this  railway  to  accomplish?  -  The  German  calcula- 
tion is,  of  course,"  says  the  anonymous  writer  I  have  already 
quoted,  "  not  only  that  new  trade  will  be  developed,  but  that  the 
course  of  present  trade  will  be  altered.  It  is  expected  that  British 
vessels  will  cease  to  be  the  chief  medium  between  Central  Europe 
and  the  East.  Passenger  traffic  with  India  is  to  be  almost  ab- 
sorbed by  the  Baghdad  Railway,  reached  from  London  and  Paris 
via  Munich  and  Vienna."  But  far  more  than  this,  Asia  Minor 
is  to  serve  for  the  overflow  population  of  the  Fatherland;  its  grain 
is  to  render  Germany  independent  of  the  United  States  and  Rus- 
sia; Mesopotamia,  irrigated  anew,  is  to  overflow  with  agricultural 
wealth;  tobacco,  silk,  oil,  petroleum,  are  to  be  produced  lavishly; 
and  a  German  fleet,  at  a  naval  base  four  days  from  Bombay,  with 
a  railway  to  Germany  behind  it.  is  to  alter  the  balance  of  power  m 
Asia  Ml  discussion  of  these  <levelopments  is  stifled  in  Germany 
at  present,  but  a  glance  at  the  map,  combined  with  an  elementary 

*A  second  incident  of  a  similar  kind  l>as  since  (December,  '90')  happened  at 
Koweit  A  Turkish  official  from  Busra  visited  Koweit  and  hoisted  the  Turk.sh  flag 
the  e  whereupon  the  commander  of  a  British  gunboat  hauled  ,t  down  and  ho.s.ed 
Mubarek's  own  flag.  The  Porte  has  repudiated  its  official's  action  and  assured  Eng- 
land hat  t  has  no  desire  to  disturb  the  ././».  ,uo.  The  French  and  Russ.an  press 
is  angr)-,  but  the  Russian  Government  has  privately  disavowed  any  aggressive  mten- 
tion  in  that  part  of  the  world. 


f  t\ 


M 


a62 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 


knowledge  of  ancient  economic  history,  is  sufficient  to  show  them 

plainly. 

This,  then,  is  the  very  serious  rivalry  which  Russia  has  now 
to  face  in  her  cherished  policy.  It  is  not  surprising  that  she  is 
genuinely  alarmed.  Two  years  ago  (November,  1899)  the  Riisski 
Trudy  a  well-informed  weekly,  since  suppressed,  prophetically 
remarked:  ''  We  have  repeatedly  urged  that  before  great  inter- 
ests have  been  developed  in  Persia  the  whole  of  this  country  must 
somehow  or  other  be  drawn  into  the  sphere  of  Russian  influence. 
What  we  can  now  attain  without  any  sacrifices  on  our  side,  later 
on,  when  the  auspicious  moment  will  have  passed,  would  require 
immense  efforts  in  a  struggle  with  Germany,  which  has  for  a  long 
time  past  been  aiming  at  the  Persian  Gulf."  A  month  later,  when 
the  Turkish  concession  to  (Germany  was  known,  the  Novoyc 
Vremya  expatiated  with  alarm  upon  the  ''  terrible  blow  "  which 
Germany  would  be  able  to  deal  to  Russian  trade,  and  upon  the 
prospect  of  Russia  having  to  fight  in  Persia  ''  not  only  against  the 
British,  but  against  a  whole  coalition  of  Western  Commercial 
adventurers,"  while  the  Sz'ict  saw  ivussia  face  to  face  not  with 
the  Triple  but  with  a  Quadruple  and  even  a  Quintuple  Alli- 
ance, formed  by  the  adhesion  of  (ireat  Britain  and  Turkey  to 
Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy.  Now  the  Noroyc  rrcmya  an- 
nounces frankly  that  "  before  the  (ierman  Baghdad  Railway 
has  become  an  accomplished  fact,  Russia's  railway  projects  in 
Persia  will  have  been  advanced  to  an  important  stage,"  and 
in  its  alarm  even  holds  out  a  surprising  olive-branch  to  Eng- 
land : 

"  We  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves  the  fact  that  the  Near 
Orient  is  of  immense  importance  to  us.  It  is  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  the  final  accomplishment  of  an  historical  task  im- 
posed by  Providence  upon  Russia.  As  England  is  perfectly  well 
aware  of  this,  she  has  swayed  hither  and  thither,  pro  and  con,  in 
her  dealings  with  Germany  with  regard  to  the  latter's  Baghdad 
Railway  scheme.     .     .    .     Had  England  conferred  one-half  the 


RUSSIAN   KXPANSKJN   IN   CENTRAL  ASL'\    26;^ 

favours  upon  this  country  which  she  has  heaped  upon  her  wily  and 
ungrateful  German  neighbour,  there  would  to-day  exist  a  cordial 
and  durable  Anglo-Russian  entente,  if  not,  indeed,  a  complete  and 
lasting  Alliance."  * 

I  have  already  described  briefly  what  Russia  is  doing  in  the 
matter  of  railway  exi)ansion  toward  the  Persian  frontier,  and 
what   her  further  intentions  are  believed  to  l)e.f- 

In  1898  Count  Vladimir  Kapnist,  cousin  of  the  then  Russian 
Ambassador  in  Vienna,  applied  on  behalf  of  an  international  syn- 
dicate for  a  concession  to  construct  a  railway  from  Tripoli  to 
Koweit,  uniting  the  Mediterranean  with  the  Persian  Gulf,  with 
the  double  object  of  developing  the  marvellously  rich  country 
traversed  by  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  and  of  reducing  the 
journey  from  Brindisi  to  Bombay  from  thirteen  days  to  eight.:}: 
In  spite  of  very  influential  support,  however,  the  scheme  fell 
through.  The  claim  that  such  a  railway  would  have  added  enor- 
mously to  the  wealth  of  the  world  appears  to  be  well-founded, 

*  Under  the  circumstances  this  overture  may  be  read  with  a  smile  in  England,  but 
for  my  own  part  I  believe  the  assertion  in  the  last  paragraph  (omitting  the  adjectives 
applied  to  Germany)  to  be  unquestionably  true. 

f  See  Chapter  XIV.,  and  also  Chapter  XXIV. 

X  The  following  was  the  exact  route  laid  down  by  the  engineers  to  the  syndicate. 
From  Tripoli  the  line  would  follow  the  sea-coast  as  far  as  the  Nahr-el-Kebir,  and  then 
up  the  course  of  that  river  over  the  lowest  and  easiest  pass  which  could  be  found 
through  the  chain  of  mountains  running  parallel  to  the  Syrian  coast.  The  line  would 
reach  a  summit  level  of  about  2,000  feet  above  the  sea  between  Tripoli  and  Homs,  on 
a  plateau  of  hard  black  basalt.  Thence  it  would  proceed  to  Homs,  which  is  about 
1,500  feet  above  the  sea,  and  on  through  Palmyra,  past  numerous  villages,  to  Rahaba, 
on  the  Euphrates,  following,  in  the  main,  the  present  caravan  route.  The  railway 
would  go  down  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  as  far  as  El  Kaim,  then  over  the  plains  to 
Hit.  where  it  would  cross  the  river  and  proceed  to  Iskanderieh,  the  junction  for  Bagh- 
dad and  for  Khannikin  (on  the  Persian  frontier),  and  to  Kerbela  and  Nedjef,  the 
famous  shrines  and  burial-places  of  the  Persian  Mahomedans,  on  the  south ;  thence,  m 
as  nearly  a  straight  line  as  possible,  across  the  great  alluvial  plain  between  the  two 
rivers  to  Kurna,  where  it  would  again  cross  the  Euphrates  and  be  continued  to  Busra, 
and  thence  across  country  to  Koweit,  on  the  Persian  Gulf.  — 7"-^^  Times,  December 
17,  1898.  Another  application  for  a  similar  railway  concession,  this  time  from  Alex- 
andretta  to  Aleppo  and  thence  to  Hit  and  onward,  is  said  {Daily  Mail,  April  27. 
1899)  to  have  been  unsuccessfully  made  by  Mr.  Ernest  Rechnitzer,  a  Hungarian 
banker  resident  in  London,  backed  by  English,  German,  and  Belgian  capital. 


ri] 


4 


I 


•  «   ^  r-  *-    ^.  AM*  - 


,f      -™it         Jt     ^     .-■*.*■»■>,    ' 


264 


ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 


but  as  it  would  not  have  strengthened  Germany  or  Russia  to 
the  exclusion  of  other  nations  it  was  doubtless  wrecked  by  the 
opposition,  or  failed  to  succeed  for  lack  of  the  official  support, 
of  one  or  both  of  these  Powers.     Russia  has  never  turned  aside 
from  her  "  historical  task,"  however.     Her  agents  have  worked 
with  complete  success  in  the  Persian  capital;    a  good  road  has 
been  built  by  a  group  of  Moscow  merchants,  heavily  backed  by 
Imperial  subsidies,  from  Resht,  on  the  Cas])ian,  to  Tehran;  the 
Shah's  ''  Cossacks  "  are  commanded  by  Russian  of^cers  and  have 
recently  been  increased  in  number  to  2,000;   and  parties  of  her 
surveyors  have  examined  the  railway  routes  to  the  Gulf.     That 
her  present  aim  is  the  incorporation  of  Persia  in  the  Russian 
Empire  admits  of  no  doubt  whatever;    indeed  it  was  recently 
openly  avowed  by  the  Chief  Officer,  a  personage  of  princely  rank, 
of  the  Grand  Duke  Alexander  IMichaelovitch,  of  the  battleship 
Rostislaz\  at  a  banquet  in  Odessa,  who  declared  it  to  be  just  as 
certain  that  Persia  would  become  Russian  as  that  Manchuria  had 

already  done  so.* 

All  accounts,  official  and  private,  agree  that  Russia  has  been 
extremely  active  in  Persia  of  late,  and  she  has  twice  despatched 
to  the  Gulf  ports  a  steamship  named  the  Koniiloi\  carrying  Rus- 
sian goods  with  which  to  open  trade  relations,  and  an  investi- 
gating commission  of  twenty  merchants,  and  is  also  stated  to 
have   sent    a  lighter  draught   vessel,   the   Azov,   to   enable   her 
admiralty  hydrographers  to  take  soundings  of  important  points. 
Her  newspapers  declare   that   her   forward    policy  in    Persia   is 
due  to  the   British  preparations  for  a  railway  from  Quetta  to 
Siestan,  and  ultimately  to  Busra— "  another  base  from   which 
she  may  attack  us  in  Central  Asia  "  !— but,  as  a  matter  of  plain 
fact,  no  direct  evidence  of  Russian  aims  in  this  direction  need 
be  adduced.     Her  determination   to   construct  such   a  railway 
as  is  here  described   follows   naturally  and  logically  from  her 
political,  geographical,  and  commercial  conditions,  and  would 

*  See  The  Standard,  July  22,  1901. 


}■ 


■*  t  •  - ,  /■'    *  ■■  *t    -t  d '*•'"*' ''     '" 


RUSSIAN    EXPANSION    IN   CKNTRAL  ASIA    265 

similarly  follow  in  the  case  of  any  other  nation  so  situated. 
It  would  be  of  such  enormous  value  to  her,  from  every  point 
of  view,  that  her  statesmen  would  be  poor  in  patriotism  indeed, 
if  they  did  not  make  every  conceivable  effort  to  secure  it.* 
Other  nations,  however,  may  be  equally  interested  to  prevent 
it,  but  this  aspect  of  the  situation  is  apart  from  the  matter  in 
hand,  and  I  shall  return  to  it  later,  in  connection  with  the 
political  relations  of  Russia  with  her  neighbours,  great  and 
small. f 

This  somewhat  lengthy  digression  has  been  intended  to  show 
what  reasons  Russia  has,  or  thinks  she  has,  for  linking  her  Euro- 
pean railway  system  without  delay  to  her  Trans-Caspian  Railway. 
I  return  now  to  Central  Asia,  with  the  reflection,  to  begin  with, 
that  the  position  of  this  link  must  chiefly  depend  upon  its  im- 
mediate object.     For  one  of  two  practical  considerations  would 
be  decisive;   the  route  would  be  selected  either  for  its  strategical 
value  and  to  form  ultimately  the  connection  with  India,  or  else 
primarily  for  the  development  of  new  territory.     If  the  former, 
then  the  shortest  and  most  direct  route  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  from  Saratof,  on  the  Volga,  to  the  little  town  of  Alexandrof- 
gai,  one  hundred  and  forty  miles  to  the  southeast  (the  two  are 
alreadv  connected  by  a  narrow-gauge  railway),  bending  round  the 
north  of  the  Caspian  and  the  south  of  the  Aral  Sea,  and  running 
straight  by  Khiva  to  the  station  of  Amu-Darya  (Charjui)  on  the 
main  line  of  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway.    This  railway  would  have 
the  disadvantage  of  passing  through  comparatively  poor  territory, 
but  it  would  be  almost  a  straight  line  from  IMoscow  to  Amu- 
Darya,  and,  via  Merv  and  Kushk  Post,  would  place  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Russian  army  within  literally  a  few  days  of  its 

*  "That  Russia  seriously  contemplates  such  an  adventure  I  do  not  for  a  moment 
believe."  Sir  Lepel  Griffin,  quoted  by  Mr.  P.  H.  Oakley  Williams,  m  ihe  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  February  19,  1900. 

t  See  Chapter  XXIV. 


*  'ii 


.     (J 


111 


1 

1; 

•  ^'1 


it 


i  i  1 
f 


t*-lMw.^<t.4^t>V»<C9  !«>'<«  I. '.^'^t^' 


,  ^1^-^%-*  « •^tt  •»  ».  *  *  •  »  -  . 


266 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^S 


military  objective,  whether  this  were  Afghanistan,  Persia,  or  Chi- 
nese Turkestan.  The  distance  from  Alexandrof-gai  to  Amu- 
Darya  station  would  be  1,128  miles,  and  the  cost  of  laying  this 
line,  which  would  meet  with  no  engmeering  dihiculty  of  any  im- 
portance, is  estimated  at  £9,500,000 — $46,300,000 — including  an 
iron  bridge  over  the  Volga  at  Saratof,  and  the  widening  of  the 
Hne  from  Saratof  to  Alexandrof-gai.  When  it  was  completed,  the 
distance  from  Moscow  to  Merv,  which  latter  we  may  take  as  a 
central  point  of  concentration,  would  be  1,980  miles,  and  at  an 
average  speed  of  twenty  miles  an  hour,  Merv  would  be  just  four 
days  distant  from  Moscow,  and  in  less  than  another  day  the 
Afo'han  frontier  would  be  reached  at  Kushk  Post.  If  strat- 
egical  and  rapid-transit  interests  were  adjudged  paramount, 
this  seems  obviously  the  line  which  should  have  been  con- 
structed. 

Russian  statesmen  have  been  led  by  considerations  of  direct 
and  strategical  transit,  rather  than  by  commercial  and  agricultural 
potentialities,  but  they  have  not  chosen  this  route.  For  reasons 
difficult  to  understand  they  have  decided  upon  a  railway  from 
Orenburg  to  Tashkent.  The  Russki  Invalid,  which  has  just 
published  an  account  of  it,  admits  that  it  will  traverse  a  large 
tract  of  sparsely  populated  and  l)arren  land.  After  leaving  Oren- 
burg it  will  pass  through  Ilentsk  and  Aktiubinsk  and  strike  the 
Syr  Darya  at  Kazalinsk.  It  will  then  follow  the  course  of  the 
river  to  Tashkent,  passing  on  the  way  the  fort  of  Karmakchi, 
the  town  of  Petrofsk,  and  the  village  of  Julek.  It  will  be  a 
single  line  and  have  a  length  of  about  1,150  miles.  The  build- 
ing of  the  railway  is  already  in  full  swing;  on  the  northern  part, 
from  Orenburg  to  Kazalinsk,  the  earth-works  and  the  building 
of  bridges  are  almost  finished,  and  the  laying  of  the  rails  will 
be  commenced  next  spring;  in  the  southern  part  the  work  is 
not  so  far  advanced,  but  preparations  are  being  made  and  ma- 
terials collected.  It  is  expected  that  the  railway  will  be  opened 
on  January  i  (14th),   1905,  and  it  will  then  be  possible  to  run 


RUSSIAN    EXPANSION   IN   CENTRAL  ASIA    267 

trains  from  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  to  Tashkent  and  the 
whole  Trans-Caspian  line.  The  estimated  cost  of  the  railway 
is  115  million  roubles — £12,150,000,  $58,175,000.  When  com- 
pleted, the  journey  will  be:  Moscow  to  Samara,  738  miles; 
Samara  to  Orenburg,  260  miles  (railway  trai^c  has  long  existed 
to  this  point);  Orenburg  to  Tashkent,  1,150  miles;  and  Tash- 
kent to  Merv,  by  the  existing  line,  597  miles.  Total:  2,745 
miles,  as  against  the  1,980  miles  via  Alexandrof-gai. 

Wlien  I  was  in  Tashkent  I  was  told  by  the  Director  of  the 
Topographical  Bureau  that  this  decision  had  been  reached,  and 
that  the  line  would  shortly  be  commenced,  but  after  studying 
the  alternative  routes  I  thought  that  he  must  be  mistaken,  and 
I  am  still  unable  to  find  a  reason  for  the  choice  that  has  been  made. 
In  each  case  over  a  thousand  miles  of  new  rails  must  be  laid, 
no  engineering  dil^culties  occur,  and  the  country  traversed  is 
almost  worthless  for  agricultural  or  commercial  development. 
The  one  important  difTerence  is  that  by  the  Orenburg-Tashkent 
route  the  military  centre  of  Russia  in  Europe  is  some  seven  hun- 
dred miles  further  from  the  military  focus  of  Russia  in  Central 

Asia. 

The  chief  export  of  Central  Asia  to  Russia  is,  and  will  be  in 
a  still  greater  degree,  cotton.  At  present  this  goes  to  the  mills 
of  Moscow  by  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway,  the  Caspian  Sea,  and 
the  Volga  in  summer,  and  the  Russian  railway  system  instead  of 
the  Volga  in  winter,  the  former  rate  being  1.08  rouble  and  the 
latter  1.30  rouble  per  poud.  From  the  centre  of  the  cotton  dis- 
tricts of  Fergana  to  Moscow  is  reckoned  at  3,212  versts,  and 
the  freight  of  cotton  at  one-thirtieth  of  a  kopeck  per  poud  per 
verst,  which  works  out  at  1.07  rouble  per  poud  * — practically  the 
same  cost  as  bv  the  existing  railwav  and  the  Volga  in  summer. 
Thus  only  in  winter  will  the  line  to  Orenburg  be  of  service 

*  The  English  or  American  reader  who  desires  to  translate  these  figures  into  the 
currency  and  quantities  of  his  own  country  can  do  so  by  the  equivalents  given  in  the 
Appendix. 


I- 


26  8 


ALL    THK    RUSSLAS 


to  the  greatest  export  of  the  country,  and  tlien  only,  allcwing 
fully  for  all  the  disadvantages  of  the  present  route,  l)y  reducnig 
the  total  cost  of  cotton  in  Moscow  by  3  per  cent.*— a  trifle,  while 
on  the  imports  of  manufactured  goods  from  Russia,  costing  much 
more  and  paying  a  higher  freight  than  cotton,  the  percentage  of 
advantage  will  be  considerably  less.  A  branch  will  doulnless  be 
run  from  the  nourishing  little  town  of  Orsk,  152  miles  to  the 
southeast  of  Orenburg,  in  the  centre  of  a  cattle-breedmg  district, 
to  Chelyabinsk,  on  the  Siberian  side  of  the  Urals,  the  commence- 
ment, properly  speaking,  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway.  This 
will  bring  grain  and  iron  to  Trans-Caspia,  and  thus  to  some 
extent  afford  a  commercial  justification  of  the  choice  of  route,  but 
even  here  I  cannot  see  that  the  advantage  over  the  present  line 
of  transportation  will  be  anything  like  great  enough  to  lead  us 
to  believe  that  the  interests  of  commerce  dictated  the  choice  of 

the  new  line. 

If  commercial  and  agricultural  development  were  really  the 
paramount  consideration,  then  beyond  any  (juestion  a  line  con- 
necting Turkestan  with  Western  Siberia  would  confer  the  great- 
est benefit.  This  would  run  from  Tashkent,  z'ia  the  town  and 
Russian  fort  of  Aulie-ata,  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  miles  to  the 
northeast;  Vernoye,  the  capital  of  the  province  of  Semiryechensk, 
with  a  population  of  nearly  25,000;  Kopal,  one  hundred  and 
seventy  miles  further  on;  Sergiopol;  Semipalatinsk,  capital  of  the 
province  of  that  name,  on  the  Irtysh  River,  with  a  population  of 
nearly  20,000;  and  thence  to  Omsk,  the  town  probably  destined 
to  become  the  most  important  on  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway. 
This  railway  would  run.  as  shown,  past  large  and  growing  towns, 
through  districts  with  an  industrious  and  prosj)erous  population 
of  nomads,  through  a  fertile  corn-growing  country,  where  the 
best  wheat  to-day  sells  for  eight  kopeks  the  poud  (twopence,  or 

•  For  this  calculation  I  am  indebted  to  an  essay  by  Mr.  D.  Zhoravko-Pokorski.  a 
Russian  merchant  resident  in  Central  Asia,  and  to  the  author  himself  for  interesting 
information  and  some  statistics  given  elsewhere. 


RUSSIAN   EXPANSION   IN  CENTRAL  ASIA     269 

four  cents,  for  thirty-six  pounds)  through  a  rich  cattle-raising 
steppe,  and  past  known  deposits  of  both  coal  and  gold.  More- 
over, It  would  enormously  increase  the  production  of  cotton  in 
Turkestan,  bv  bringing  cheap  wheat  into  that  country  from  Si- 
beria and  thus  allowing  all  the  land  now  necessarily  given  to  corn- 
growing  to  be  devoted  to  the  far  more  profitable  cultivation  of 

cotton. 


The  reader  who  has  followed  this  somewhat  technical  rail- 
way discussion  will  have  gathered  that  Russia  has  two  inter- 
twined aims  and  motives,  that  she  is  driving  two  politico-economic 
horses  abreast,  so  to  speak.     She  greatly  desires  to  connect  her 
European  railwav  svstem  with  the  railways  of  British  India,  across 
Central  Asia  and  Afghanistan.     And  she  desires  this  for  tw^o 
reasons:    first,  that  she  may  enjoy  the  great  advantages  of  the 
future  ownership  of  the  great  international  railway  route  to  the 
East-  and  second,   that  by  depriving  any   prospective   railway 
to  the  Persian  Gulf  of  much  of  its  raison  d'etre  she  may  pre- 
vent it  being  built,  and  thus  block  the  creation  of  what  would 
undoubtedlv  be  an  almost  insuperable  obstacle  to  her  protectorate 
over  Persia,  and  her  own  railway  to  the  Persian  Gulf.      Ihis 
policv  mav  be  thought  to  resemble  Paul  Morphy's  announce- 
ment of  mate  in  twenty-three  moves,  but  Russian  diplomacy 
is  accustomed  to  look  far  ahead  and   to  calculate  with  wide 
combinations,  and  when  I  say  above  that  such  is  Russia  s  de- 
sire   I  mean  that  I  know  that  the  men  who  chiefly  direct  her 
policy  have  these  particular  aims  in  view   and  very  much  at 

heart 

Most  readers  will  bv  now  have  formulated  an  objection  some- 
what in  this  shape:  it  is  all  very  well  for  Russia  to  talk  about  join- 
ing her  Central  Asian  railways  to  the  Indian  railways,  and  thus 
securing  a  great  rapid-transit  route  from  Europe  to  the  richest 
East  but  what  about  Afghanistan  and  the  Indian  Government- 


a^^^j^-v., » ^T- ■  *  "»-«<itv«*    »-■ 


270 


ALL    1  HK    RUSSIAS 


will  they,  under  any  circumstances,  permit  such  a  junction  to  be 
made,  and  thus  prepare  an  easy  road  for  Russian  troops  to  enter 
India?  *  The  question  is,  of  course,  of  the  first  importance,  and 
in  the  present  state  of  feeling  on  both  sides,  it  can  only  be  an- 
swered with  some  discretion.  In  the  first  place,  such  a  junction 
is  absolutely  certain  to  come  some  day,  but  the  time  may  be  far 
ot¥.  Second,  if  Russia  were  successful  in  a  war  against  England, 
it  would  assuredly  be  one  of  her  conditions  of  i)eace.  Third,  a 
railway  would  c:ive  little  advantage  to  Russia  that  it  would  not 
give  to  England,  for  if  it  would  enable  Russia  to  hurry  troops 
toward  India,  it  would  ecjually  enable  luigland  to  hurry  Indian 
troops  toward  Central  Asia,  and  the  fmal  advantage  would 
thus  be,  as  it  always  is  in  war,  to  the  quickest  to  act.  Eourth,  it 
would  do  much  to  remove  international  misunderstanding,  for 
it  would  bring  intelligent  and  connnercial  Russians  into  India, 
and  a  similar  class  of  English  and  Anglo-Indians  into  Russia. 
Finally,  will  not  the  moment  soon  come,  when  two  civilised 
nations  will  refuse  to  allow  an  uncivilised  regime,  friendly  at 
heart  to  neither  and  only  friendly  in  action  t(^  one  of  them  so 
long  as  self-interest  dictates  such  a  course, f  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  one  of  those  great  advances  of  inteixommutiication,  which 
are  the  chief  signs  and  promoters  of  civilisation?  In  view  of 
these  considerations,  it  can  hardly  be  thought  unreasonable  for 
Russia  to  plan  her  Central  Asian  connnunications  with  a  view 
to  their  ultimate  extension  to  Central  India. 

If  the  two  nations  agreed  to  join  hands  across  Afghanistan, 
with  their  respective  railway  systems  as  at  present  existing,  the 
route  would  be  from  IMerv  to  Kushkinski  Post,  thence  to  New 
Chaman,  the  present  terminus  of  the  Indian  frontier  railway,  sixty 
miles  northwest  of  Ouetta;  thence  to  Sukkur  and  Ruk  junction; 
and  from  there  either  to  the  Punjab  or  to  Karachi,  one  of  the  four 

*  For  the  details  of  the  Russian  branch  railway  to  the  Afghan  frontier,  see  the  pre- 
ceding Chapter,  and  for  the  political  (luestion  of  Russia  and  India,  see  Chapter  XXIV. 
t  This  was  written  before  the  death  of  the  late  Amir  of  Afj^hanistan. 


RUSSIAN   EXPANSION   IN   CENTRAL  ASIA    271 

great  seaports  of  India.  If  Kushkinski  Post  and  New  Chaman 
were  connected  by  railway  to-day,  a  distance  of  only  four  hun- 
dred and  thirty-eight  miles,  without  any  new  line  whatever  being 
constructed  by  either  Russia  or  India,  the  distance  from  London 
to  Karachi  by  rail  (including  the  short  sea  passages  of  the  Chan- 
nel and  the  Caspian)  is  calculated  by  Mr.  Paul  Lessar  as  4,716 
miles,  and  the  time  of  the  journey  as  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  and  one-half  hours.  The  route  would  be  London,  Calais, 
Berlin,  Alexandrovo,  Warsaw,  Rostof,  Petrofsk,  Baku,  Krasno- 
vodsk,  Alerv,  Kushk,  Chaman,  Karachi.  If  Kushkinski  Post 
and  New  Chaman  were  connected  by  rail  after  the  Orenburg- 
Tashkent  link  is  finished,  there  would  be  of  course  an  all-rail  route 
from  Calais  to  Karachi,  but  it  would  take  considerably  more 
time. 


I  have  written  at  w^hat  may  seem  undue  length  about  the 
future  of  Russian  railway  construction  in  Central  Asia  because  it 
is  really  the  most  important  and  significant  question  in  that  part 
of  the  world.  It  is  vitally  connected  with  peace  and  war  alike — 
with  commercial  development  and  international  rivalry.  The 
reader  who  takes  the  trouble  to  grasp  the  routes  I  have  men- 
tioned and  the  arguments  for  and  against  each  of  them,  will  under- 
stand also  where  the  line  of  next  tension  lies,  and  when  the  first 
step  in  advance  is  made — and  it  may  not  long  be  delayed — he 
will  be  in  a  position  to  interpret  its  intention,  to  perceive  its 
diplomatic  significance,  and  possibly  to  forecast  its  military  con- 
sequences. 


*  u 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

RUSSIAN    ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL    ASIA: 
TRANS-CASPIA    AND    I'ASHKENT 

AS  I  sat  writing  my  notes  in  a  little  whitewashed  room  in 
the  very  heart  of  Asia,  having-  come  by  train  through 
Merv,  with  its  i)ranch  straight  to  the  Afghan  frontier;  past  the 
ruined  fortress  of  Geok  Te])e,  which  fought  Skobelef  for  three 
bloody  weeks;  ])ast  Bokhara,  the  last  home  of  Central  Asian  Mus- 
sulman fanaticism;  by  Samarkand,  where  Genghiz  Khan  ruled 
and  Tamerlane  is  buried;  to  Tashkent,  which  routed  a  Russian 
army  thirty-five  years  ago — as  1  sat  and  thought,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  this  wild,  remote,  unaltered  h^ast,  and  on  the  other,  that 
I  was  as  safe  as  if  in  my  own  garden  and  that  I  had  just  come 
from  a  brilliant  evening  party  at  the  Governor-General's,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  must  be  dreaming.  I  almost  despair  of 
making  it  all  seem  real  to  anybody  else,  for  the  [)osition  was  one 
*'  at  which,"  in  Dr.  Johnson's  words,  "  experience  revolts,  cre- 
dulity hesitates,  and  even  fancy  stares."  However,  the  attempt 
must  be  made,  and  I  begin  with  the  district  in  which  you  set 
foot  on  landing  upon  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Caspian,  officially 
known  as  the  Trans-Caspian  Territory. 

The  administrative  district  of  Trans-Caspia  extends  from  the 
Caspian  to  the  frontier  of  Bokhara,  and  is  under  the  authority 
of  a  *'  Chef  du  1>rritoire  Transcasi)ien,"  with  headcjuarters  at 
Askhabad.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  this  was  I.t. -Colonel  I^ogo- 
liubof,  one  of  the  most  enlightened  administrators  it  has  been 
my  good  fortune  to  lueet.  He  is  not  only  a  soldier  and  a  states- 
man, but  a  student;  the  j^ractical  problems  of  his  great  province, 


2~'2 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL   ASIA     273 


its  commerce,  its  ethnology,  its  arts,  liave  all  been  made  by  him 
the  subjects  of  profound  investigation,  and  he  talks  of  them 
with  rare  knowledge  and  enthusiasm.  Wdien  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  visiting  him  he  was  busily  engaged  upon  a  great  ethnological 
maj)  of  Trans-Caspia,  the  first  that  had  ever  been  attempted, 
and  I  believe  he  will  some  day  publish  an  epoch-making  study 
of  Turkoman  art,  particularly  as  exhibited  in  the  products  of 
Turkoman  needlewomen. 

Trans-Caspia  has  an  area  of  about  215,000  square  miles  and 
only  about  360.000  inhabitants.  Its  scanty  population  cannot 
increase,  because  each  Turkoman  head  of  a  family  requires,  to 
live  with  anything  like  comfort,  ten  camels,  four  to  five  horses, 
fifty  sheep,  and  two  cows,  and  to  feed  these,  ten  square  versts 
are  needed.  Camels  cannot  be  replaced  by  horses,  for  only 
camels  and  asses  can  eat  the  prickly  ''  camel's  thorn  "  which  is 
the  sole  fodder  available  during  much  of  the  year.  The  attempt 
to  imi)rove  the  condition  of  Trans-Caspia  is  therefore  a  struggle 
between  civilisation  and  this  nomad  life,  and  it  is  unlikely  that 
civilisation  will  win. 

Civilisation  has  had,  at  any  rate,  one  bad  effect — it  has  killed 
the  carpet.  The  carpet  woven  by  Turkoman  women  in  their 
moving  tents,  without  any  pattern  to  copy,  the  design  being 
handed  down  in  instinct  and  memory,  was,  both  for  design  and 
workmanship,  the  finest  thing  of  the  kind  in  the  world.  Old 
specimens  are  now  almost  unprocurable  and  fetch  huge  prices, 
but  the  examples  which  may  still  be  had  are  eagerly  bought  up. 
In  fact,  carpets  furnish  one  of  the  chief  topics  of  conversation 
among  Russian  of^cers  and  functionaries  quartered  in  Trans- 
Caspia.  Everybody  collects  them,  and  the  discussions  about 
price  and  quality,  and  the  comparisons  of  **  finds  "  are  endless. 
Carpets  are  peculiarly  convenient  to  these  nomads  of  civilisation, 
as  they  w^ere  to  the  uncivilised  nomads  who  originally  made  them, 
for  as  both  soldiers  and  civilians  may  not  be  long  in  one  place 
they  seldom  possess  much  furniture,  since  it  could  not  be  trans- 


it 


ji 


ii 


f  I 


i  \. 


174 


ALL    TLIL    RUSSIAS 


ported  except  at  an  expense  which  would  ruin  tlieni,  whereas 
a  few  empty  beer-boxes  with  carpets  and  cushions  thrown  over 
them,  and  a  few  carpets  hung  on  the  walls,  give  you  a  hue 
Eastern  salon  at  once.  Moreover,  carpets  can  l)e  easily  taken 
home,  and  then  if  you  wisli  you  can  probably  sell  them  for  much 
more 'than  you  gave  for  them.  There  is  unfortunately  one  draw- 
back— all  modern  carpets  fade. 

The  old  carpet,  however,  is  now  perhaps  the  one  relic  left 
of  a  great  bygone  civilisation,  for  assuredly  the  Turk(^mans  ni 


In  the  New  Tashkent. 

their  dirt  and  sciualor  could  not  have  invented  ihc  beautiful  de- 
signs that  their  women  made  till  receiuly.  The  |)attern>  and 
the  surroundings  are  in  too  great  a  contrast,  d'he  ditYerent  great 
tribes  of  Turkomans— the  Sariks,  Saliks.  and  nearer  the  Caspian 
the  Yumuds— are  indistinguishal)le  in  their  dress,  their  utensils, 
their  habits,  etc.;  their  carpets  alone  can  serve  to  distinguish 
them.  These  are  their  passports— their  visiting  cards.  Perhaps 
these  very  patterns  were  given  them  by  Nebuchadnezzar!  But 
aniline  dyes  and  loom  competition  are  killing  these  fast,  and 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL   ASIA     275 

soon  nothing  except  their  old  carpets  will  be  left  to  tell  of  a 
mysterious  civilisation  of  the  far  past.  This  whole  region,  as  far 
as  China,  is  the  field  of  rectangular  ornaments,  and  the  details 
of  these  patterns  recur  in  the  most  extraordinary  fashion.  A  de- 
tail can  be  traced,  for  instance,  through  China,  Afghanistan,  Per- 
sia, and  Galicia.  In  Trans-Caspia  are  two  well-marked  races, 
about  whom  we  know  almost  everything — iu  the  north  the 
Kirghiz,  in  the  south  the  Russians.  In  the  farthest  south  there 
are  two  or  three  tribes  of  Arabs  and  Jews,  come  nobody  knows 
how  or  when.  But  the  Turkomans  are  the  great  mystery,  and 
it  will  only  be  from  their  carpets  that  the  problem  of  their  origin 
and  movements  will  be  solved  at  last.  The  magic  carpet  of 
Eastern  fable,  which  transports  its  possessor  in  an  instant  to  the 
other  end  of  the  earth,  has  its  counterpart  in  the  carpet  which 
will  carry  the  student  round  the  Asian  world  in  the  track  of  its 
racial  design. 

Xot  only  cannot  the  population  of  Trans-Caspia  increase,  but, 
so  far  as  can  be  foreseen,  its  productivity  is  likely  to  decline. 
Cotton  is  its  chief,  indeed  j)ractically  its  only  important  export. 
It  formerly  possessed  the  finest  race  of  horses  in  the  world,  and 
the  Turkoman,  who  lived  by  raiding,  esteemed  his  steed  far 
above  all  his  other  belongings,  including  his  wife.  But  Russian 
rule  has  imposed  peace  upon  him,  and  therefore  the  need  of  his 
horse,  and  his  incentive  to  breed  and  cherish  it,  have  gone.  So, 
in  spite  of  Imperial  Commissions  and  the  importation  of  Arab 
stallions,  the  fleet  and  tireless  Turkoman  horse,  with  his  flashing 
eye  and  scarlet  nostril,  is  extinct  forever.  And  the  production 
of  cotton  cannot  increase  without  an  increase  of  water  for  irri^a- 
tion,  and  instead  of  more  there  is  growing  steadily  less.  For  the 
Kopet  Dagh  Mountains,  which  rise  above  Askhabad,  and  are  the 
great  source  of  water  supply,  are  gradually  wearing  away.  Ages 
ago  there  was  eternal  snow  upon  them;  now  they  are  nowhere 
more  than  9,000  feet  high.  The  explanation  is  that  they  are  of 
clayey  substance.    In  summer  the  great  heat  calcines  this  clay  to 


1^6 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


powder,  then  the  rains  come  and  wash  it  away.  Hence  the 
fecundating-  power  of  the  rivers,  but  hence  also  their  ultimate 
disappearance.  A  g-eographical  authority  has  said  of  this  whole 
region  that  "  both  glaciers  and  rivers  continue  to  lose  volume; 
the  lakes  are  shrinking  and  the  extremes  of  temperature  become 
more  marked,  while  the  sands  of  the  desert  are  steadily  encroach- 
ing on  the  cultivated  zones."  A  well  was  recently  sunk  three 
miles  from  the  mountains  to  a  depth  of  seven  hundred  metres 
without  striking  water.     The  truth  is  that  this  water  question. 


,' 

'-- 

■   , 

.  \hJk 

i 

il 

t 

i 

1^ 

A  Cossack  Pairol  in  Tashkent. 

vital  to  tlic  prosperity  and  indeed  to  the  existence  ui  1  rans 
Cas|)ia,  is  in  the  last  analyMS  a  political  i^>ue — a  pectiliarlv  in- 
teresting example  of  the  forces  under! \ing  di|)]()niacv  and 
national  ambitions.  V(^x  the  water-ba^in  of  this  ])art  of  d  rans- 
Caspia  is  in  Persia,  and  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan  controls,  in 
the  River  Murghab.  the  water  sup|)ly  of  the  great  Merv  oasis 
and  other  districts.  Therefore  if  these  possessions  of  Russia 
are  ever  to  regain  their  ancient  wealth,  when  Merv,  for  instance, 
was  reallv  ''  Queen  of  the  World,"  Russia  must  rule  in  Persia 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL    ASIA     277 

and  Afghanistan.  Northern  Persia — the  province  of  Khorassan 
— is  probably  at  her  mercy,  to  seize  whenever  an  opportunity 
or  an  excuse  presents  itself,  but  Afghanistan  is  cjuite  another 
matter,  for  the  Pritish  fleet  blocks  the  wa}-  thither.  Thus  the 
cotton  crop  of  Central  Asia,  and  ])urchases  for  Russia  on  the 
markets  of  Richmond  and  Xew  Orleans — for  it  is  Russia's  de- 
sire to  grow  all  her  own  cotton  and  buy  none  abroad — depend 
at  last  u])on  the  number  of  ironclads  that  tiy  the  cross  of  St. 
George  in  the  Channel  and  the  3^1editerranean.  It  is.  I  repeat, 
a  peculiarly  interesting  example  of  the  correlation  of  sea-power 
and  political  history,  but  it  should  not  surprise  the  readers  of 
Captain  Mahan. 


The  cities  of  Central  Asia  to-day  are  of  two  widely  differing 
kinds — the  old  and  the  new,  the  world-famous  towns  of  antiquity, 
whose  proud  and  fanatical  inhabitants  have  onlv  been  constrained 
for  a  few  years  to  tolerate  white  men  among  them,  and  the 
brand-new  settlements  which  Russia  has  built  up  for  her  admin- 
istrators, her  soldiers,  and  her  merchants.  Each  kind  is  the  more 
interesting  according  to  whether  you  look  at  it  with  the  eve  of 
the  tra\-e]]er  and  ilie  ethnologist,  or  from  the  point  of  \iew  of 
tlie  student  of  contcm|)orary  expansion  and  ])o]itics.  Krasno- 
vo(Pk  I  have  sufticicnily  described;  Kizil  Arwit  i<  nierelx-  the  ^ite 
of  the  railua}-  \\ork.^liops,  where  a  large  ininiher  o\  I\n.<-ian 
artisans  are  employed,  whose  pale  wives  and  cliihh-en  give  |)ain- 
ful  evidence  of  the  unhealthiness  of  the  place  and  climate;  Merv 
is  whollv  a  new  citv,  the  old  "  Oueen  of  the  World  "  beins^  noth- 
ing  but  a  few  splendid  ruins  some  distance  away,  an  important 
military  centre  where  the  prevalence  of  a  particularly  virulent 
fever  has  often  suggested  the  desirability  of  abandoning  the 
town  altogether,  and  where  a  few  miles  to  the  east,  the  Tsar  has 
an  "  appanage  "  which  irrigation  and  skilful  management  are 
making  with  a  most  fertile  and  profitable  estate;  Askhabad,  the 


278 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^S 


|(    > 


military  headquarters  of  Turkestan,  on  account  of  the  proximity 
of  the  Persian  frontier  and  the  road  to  Meshed,  is  ahuost  entirely 
a  new  town,  where  the  central  railway  administration  has  a 
range  of  handsome  stone-built  othces.  None  of  these  calls  for 
any  special  mention. 

In  ordinary  times  the  entire  garrison  of  Central  Asia  is  ])r(^ba- 
blv  about  30,000  men,  with  headcjuarters  at  Askhal)ad,  and  the 
chief  garrisons  at  Mcvv,  Tashkent,  Samarkand,  and  Andijan.    At 


The  B^.ys'  College,  Tashkent. 

the  present  moment  this  h,i;ure  is  doubtless  largely  exceeded. 
The  civil  administration,  whicli,  as  everywhere  in  Russia,  is  elab- 
orate and  highly  manned,  brings  a  population  of  its  own,  under 
a  Governor-General  of  Turkestan  at  Tashkent,  a  Governor  of  the 
Trans-Caspian  Territory  at  Askhabad,  and  Governors  at  Samar- 
kand and  at  Margelan,  the  administrative  centre  of  Fergana.  All 
the  public  offices  are  fine  commodious  buildings,  the  officials  and 
their  families  live  in  much  comfort,  indeed,  often  in  luxury,  and 
the  foreign  shops  in  the  chief  towns  are  lar^e  and  wed  stocked. 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL    ASIA     279 

There  are  admirable  schools  for  Russian  children,  and  many 
native  schools  for  teaching  Russian  and  elementary  subjects. 
Two  prisons  I  inspected,  and  that  of  Tashkent  was,  so  far  as 
I  could  see,  excellent.  The  other,  a  mere  guard-room  in  the  cita- 
del of  Andijan,  was  not  creditable,  for  the  twenty  or  thirty 
prisoners  were  crowded  together  in  one  apartment  without  dis- 
tinction of  class  or  crime,  the  sanitary  conditions  were  oiYensive, 
and  there  was  no  proper  supervision.  But  Andijan  is  the  latest 
and  remotest  Russian  town,  and  doubtless  a  proper  prison  will 
be  built  before  long.  It  was  at  the  village  of  Mintiuba,  close 
to  Andijan,  by  the  way,  that  an  abortive  little  revolt  broke 
out  in  1898,  suppressed  with  the  usual  thoroughness  of  the 
Russians  in  such  matters,  the  village  being  wiped  out,  a  col- 
ony of  Russian  emigrants  planted  on  its  site,  eight  leaders 
hanged  together,  and  a  large  number  deported  to  Siberia — ria 
Moscow  ! 

One  curious  little  fact  about  Trans-Caspia.  by  the  way,  de- 
serves mention.  The  Persians,  of  whom  there  is  of  course  a  large 
working  and  trading  population,  insist  upon  being  paid  with  the 
Persian  kraii.  a  small  silver  coin  now  worth  40  kopecks.  The 
Ivussian  authorities  ha\-e  recentl}-  prohil)ited  its  importation, 
but  with,  the  only  effect,  so  far.  of  causing  its  price  to  ap- 
j)reciatc. 

The  capital  of  Russian  Central  Asia — though  no  such  nominal 
position  exists — is  undoubtedly  Tashkent,  ''  the  city  of  stone,"  at 
tlie  northern  terminus  of  the  railway  in  Turkestan,  and  presently 
to  be  connected  with  Europe  ria  Oldenburg.  Here  the  two 
kinds  of  city  and  the  two  races  are  best  seen  side  l)y  side.  Tash- 
kent was  for  many  generations,  and  perhaps  still  remains,  the 
most  important  strategical  focus  of  Central  Asia.  An  interesting 
and  significant  incident  is  connected  with  its  capture.  The  gallant 
ChernaiefY,  advancing  victorious  from  the  north,  attacked  it  in 
1864,  but  was  beaten  back  with  heavy  loss.  Alexander  II.,  averse 
to  further  slaughter  in  a  cause  whose  importance  he  had  not 


28o 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


realised. and  perhaps  fearini;"  coniplicalions  with  Knoland, forbade 
him  to  make  a  second  attempt.  The  outcome  is  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  how  Russian  officials  on  remote  frontiers  drag  Russian 
policy  at  their  heels.  Chernaieff  appears  to  have  known  what 
was  in  the  Tsar's  despatches,  so  he  attacked  first,  took  the  city 
by  storm,  and  then  opened  his  papers.  The  reply  he  sent,  as 
given  by  Xey  (((noted  by  Ross  and  Skrine),  was  this:  "  Your 
Majesty's  order  frobidding  me  to  take  l\'ishkent  has  reached  me 
only  in  the  city  itself,  which  1  have  taken  and  place  at  your  Maj- 
esty's feet."  His  career  was  ruined  by  this  act,  l)ut  Ta.^hkem  was 
promptly  used  as  a  base  from  which   to  subjugate  Samarkand 

and  liokhara.  It  is 
after  Chernaieff  that 
the  junction  of  Cher- 
na\e\()   is  named. 

Tashkent  is  ])rob- 
ably  to-da)-  the  larg- 
est town  in  Asiatic 
Russia,  for  in  1885 
it  w  as  noarh-  as  p(  .p- 
nlous  at  Tith's.  ]ia\- 
ing  ijo.ooo  inhabit- 
ant <,  and  covering 
an  area  of  twelve  sipiare  miles.  The  tirst  thing  that  strikes 
ytm  as  you  drive  from  the  station  is  the  width  of  the 
streets,  and  the  second  the  mud.  The  former  are  often  hftv 
yards  wide,  and  the  latter  is  a  foot  deej).  Through  this  wades 
and  splashes  an  extraordinary  procession  of  men  and  beasts — 
Tajiks,  the  chief  race,  of  Persian  descent,  in  turbans  and  multi- 
colored khalats,  or  loose-sleeved  robes  gathered  at  the  waist 
with  a  sash,  their  material  depending  upon  the  wealth  of  the 
owner;  Kirghiz  in  skins  with  the  fur  inside  and  tight-fitting  caps; 
women  in  sad-toned  garments  and  draped  from  crown  to  sole  in 
thick,  absolutely  opacpie  horse-hair  veils;   Russian  soldiers,  always 


A  Familiar  Siirlit  in  Tashkent. 


^i 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL   ASIA     281 

in  the  same  thick  grey  felt  overcoats — in  fact,  all  the  eastern 
liumanity  seen  by  Matthew  Arnold  in  the  past: 

The  Tartars  of  Ferghana,  from  the  banks 

Of  the  Jaxartes,  men  with  scanty  beards 

And  close-set  skull-caps  ;  and  those  wilder  hordes 

Who  roam  o'er  Kipchak  and  the  northern  waste ; 

Kalmucks  and  unkempt  Kuzzaks,  tribes  who  stray 

Nearest  the  Pole,  and  wandering  Kirghizzes, 

Who  came  on  shaggy  ponies  from  Pamere. 

Thev  ride  on  liorses,  on  donkeys — often  two  adults  on  one  little 
beast — on  shaggy  camels  or  in  the  arba  shown  in  my  photograph, 
with  enormously  high  wheels  to  enable  it  to  ford  rivers  without 
wetting  its  load,  the  driver  seated  on  the  horse  in  the  shafts. 
The  Russian  town,  which  has  5,000  or  6,000  inhabitants,  consists 
of  well-built,  low  houses  of  brick  and  stucco,  with  roofs  of  sheet 
iron  painted  green,  and  the  streets,  as  everywhere  else  in  these 
Russian  settlements,  are  planted  on  each  side  with  shade  trees, 
chiefly  silver  poplars.  In  the  Russian  shops  most  of  the  neces- 
saries and  some  of  the  luxuries  of  life  may  be  bought,  though  they 
do  not  compare  with  the  shops  of  far  Siberian  towns.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  hotel,  its  place  being  taken.  longo  intcrvallo,  by 
what  are  called  Xomcra — '*  numbers,"  that  is,  furnished  rooms,  to 
which,  if  you  have  nowhere  else  to  eat,  you  can  have  a  greasy  iTieal 
brought.  These  are  dirty,  cold,  and  uncomfortable.  But  there 
is  a  magnificent  military  club,  with  a  theatre  and  ball-room, 
where  you  can  fmd  all  the  papers,  including  a  local  bi-weekly, 
the  I'icdomosti.  play  cards  or  billiards,  and  fare  very  well  indeed, 
being  waited  upon  by  soldier  orderlies.  The  Governor-General — 
when  I  was  there,  the  late  General  Dukhovskoi — who  rules  over 
the  whole  of  Turkestan,  lives  in  a  charming  old-fashioned,  wide- 
spreading  residency,  filled  with  precious  Eastern  objects.  On 
nights  of  official  reception  the  staircase  is  lined  with  picturesque 
native  troops  who  supply  a  fitting  local  colour,  and  several  bands 
of  oriental  performers  with  weird  instruments  provide  local  sound. 


282 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


I  can  no  longer  thank  General  Dukhovskoi  for  all  his  kindness, 
but  the  hospitality  so  brilliantly  (lis])ense(l  by  Madame  Dukhov- 
skoi will  not  be  fori^otten  by  anybody  who  ever  enjoyed  it. 
The  large  staft  of  officials  at  Tashkent  works  in  spacious  quarters 
in  buildings  which,  as  they  were  erected  thirty  years  ago,  show 
the  foresight  that  provided  accommodation  for  all  the  develop- 
ment to  follow.  The  garrison  at  the  time  of  my  visit  consisted 
of  four  battalions  of  sharpshooters  (strcllci),  two  of  the  line,  one 
of  engineers,  a  regiment  of  Cossacks,  and  some  artillery.  There 
is  an  observatory,  equipped  with  instruments  brought  on  camel- 


i^^^m^' 


The  Arba. 

back  across  the  desert.  But  the  sight  remaining  most  vividly 
in  my  memory  is  the  RcalscJiulc  of  Tashkent.  This  was  not 
only  wonderful  because  it  was  in  the  heart  of  Asia,  but 
also  because  it  would  l)e  an  admiral)le  school  even  in  Lon- 
don or  New  York.  The  enthusiastic  headmaster,  l^rincc  Dol- 
goruki,  conducted  me  over  it.  and  a  better  equipped  nr  more 
capably  managed  educational  institution  could  hardly  be 
found.  A  complete  course  of  instruction  is  given,  and  the 
class-rooms,  museums,  lalxjratories,  gymnasiums,  eic,  were 
on    the    latest    German    model.     There    are    two    hundred    and 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL   ASIA     283 

ninetv-six  scholars,  all  sons  of  Russian  officials  and  residents 
except  two,  the  son  of  the  late  Amir  of  Kokand  and  the  son 
of  a  rich  native  merchant.  Among  the  professors  was  ^Ir. 
Howard,  a  Russian  subject,  admirably  teaching  the  Eng- 
lish classes,  and  I  was  invited  to  satisfy  myself  of  the  ability  of 
his  scholars.  The  school  costs  40,000  roubles  a  year,  of  which 
the  boys  contribute  forty  roubles  each  and  the  State  the  rest. 
They  take  only  their  dejeuner  at  school,  and  for  this  they  pay 
seven  roul)les  each  per  half-year.  I  saw  this  meal,  and  how  it 
is  provided  for  the  money  1  cannot  tell.  Afterward  I  visited 
the  Technical  School,  and  here,  remembering  the  admirable 
Austrian  native  schools  of  Bosnia,  I  was  disappointed  to  find 
but  very  few  native  boys.  It  appears,  however,  that  they  in- 
varial)ly  fall  behind,  and  most  of  them  leave  after  the  second 
year.  But  any  native  boy  who  wishes  to  learn  can  attend  one 
of  the  gratuitous  schools  in  the  native  quarter  where  Russian 
is  taught  and  elementary  instruction  given  by  some  of  the  most 
dexoted  educationalists  I  have  seen,  who  live  in  discomfort  and 
on  a  ])ittance,  devoted  to  their  work  and  worshipped  by  their 
scholars.  Altogether,  in  fact,  Russia  is  doing  more  to  educate 
her  people,  both  Russian  and  native,  in  Central  Asia  than  >1ie 
is  doing  in  lun-ope. 

The  nati\e  (juarter  of  Tashkent  contains  nothing  of  interest, 
unless  it  be  the  old  citadel  which  Chernaieff  stormed  and  after- 
ward put  in  repair  for  his  own  defence.  It  is  simply  a  wide  enceinte 
surrounded  by  high  earthen  walls,  commanding  the  city  by  a 
number  of  guns.  Within  its  area  are  the  magazines  and  barracks, 
but  as  a  military  work  it  is  long  out  of  date.  No  foreigner  has 
eyer  visited  it,  so  I  remarked  to  the  Governor-General  that  I 
should  like  to  do  so.  He  was  surprised,  but  upon  reflection,  see- 
ing no  reason  why  he  should  refuse,  consented,  and  issued  a 
written  order  that  I  should  be  admitted.  The  officer  in  command 
was  the  most  surprised  individual  in  Central  Asia  when  I  arrived 
with  my  order.     He  conducted  me  into  the  guard-room  within 


284 


ALL   THE    RUSSL^S 


the  walls,  and  then  incfuired  courteously  what  it  was  that  I  wished 
to  see;  for,  said  he,  "There  is  nothini;-  whatever  remarkable 
in  the  citadel." 

'*  I  beg"  your  pardon,"  1  rei)lied,  "  btit  I  believe  there  is  a  most 
extraordinary  thing  here  at  this  moment." 

**  What  may  that  \)C^  "  he  asked,  in  much  surprise. 

''  An  Englishman,"  I  said;  and  he  laughed  and  admitted  that 
it  was  indeed  so.  This  citadel,  however,  reminds  me  of  an  inci- 
dent which  explains  how  Chernaieff  came  to  conquer  these  peo- 


Father  and  S<»ii  in  T.ishkent. 


pies  as  he  did.  After  the  storming,  and  e\en  before  tlie  dead 
natives  had  all  been  buried,  and  almost  before  the  hring  had 
ceased,  fmding  himself  war-stained  and  uncomfortable  from  not 
having  changed  his  clothes  for  days,  he  went,  alone  and  unat- 
tended, on  the  very  afternoon  of  his  victory,  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
tests of  his  staff,  to  the  va])our-l)aths  in  the  nati\'e  city.  Such 
extraordinary  coolness  and  inditlerence  made  a  greater  impres- 
sion than  all  his  Cossacks  and  can.non.  This  is  indeed  how  na- 
tives are  taught  who  is  their  master,  as  our  own  earlier  Indian 
annals  al)un{lantlv  show. 


I 


ADMINISTRATION    IN    CENTRAL   ASIA     285 

Statistics  of  Central  Asian  trade  are  not  easy  to  procure,  for 
Russia  is  very  jealous  of  foreign  curiosity  there.     The  annual 
report,  for  example,  of  the  Trans-Caspian  Railway  is  printed  in 
two  parts,  one  the  military  and  confidential  portion;  the  other 
the  commercial.    The  director  of  the  railway  at  Askhabad  bluntly 
refused  to  give  me  the  latter,  though  the  highest  local  authority 
ordered  him  to  do  so,  without  a  direct  order  from  the  Minister  of 
War,  and  this  of  course  I  did  not  apply  for,  as  it  would  have 
invested  my  natural  and  innocent  curiosity  with  a  suspicious  im- 
portance.    But  certainly  Russian  trade  here  has  grown  by  leaps 
and  bounds,  except  with  Afghanistan,  where  it  has  ceased  alto- 
gether, for  political  reasons,  and  by  the  action  of  the  Amir. 
Askhabad  station  was  opened  in  December,  1885.  and  by  Oc- 
tober,   1886.   no  less  than   360,000  pouds  of  merchandise  had 
l)a>sed  through  cji  route  for  Persia.     Taking  the  average  of  the 
three  years  previous  to  the  opening  of  the  railway,  1883-5,  and 
the  average  of  four  years,   1893-6,  the  hiiports  of  the  country 
nearlv   trebled,  while  the  exports  nearly  (juadrupled.      During 
the  vear    1899   (the   latest   statistical   year),   the  Trans-Caspian 
kailwav  carried  24,999  passengers  and  376,000  tons  of  freight, 
and  hs  gross  recei|)ts  were  £j2S,37^^^  ^^'  ^59^  P^r  mile.    And  this, 
be  it  rememl)ered.  upon  a  railway  originally  built  as  a  strategical 
line  and  until  a  short  time  ago  under  the  direct  control  of  the 
Minister  of  War.    The  exception  to  the  development  of  trade  is 
Afo-hanistan — a  fact   evidentlv  unknown  to  writers  who   have 
pointed  morals  by  the  relations  of  Russians  and  Afghans  in  Cen- 
tral Asia. 

In  1895  Afghan  exports  to  Russian  territory  were  of  the 
value  of  209,000  roubles;  and  in  1896  of  83.000  roubles;  while 
Russia  exported  to  Afghanistan  in  1895,  21,000  roubles,  and 
in  1896  the  trade  ceased  completely.  The  trade  of  Persia, 
it  should  be  added,  is  with  Russia  proper;  Trans-Casp^a 
is  merely  the  point  of  transit  and  produces  nothing  which 
Persia  buvs. 


286 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


It  will  be  evident,  I  think,  before  I  have  done  with  Central 
Asia,  and  I  may  as  well  set  down  the  reflection  now,  that  Russia 
has  carried  out  a  great  task  here,  and  on  the  whole,  most  worthily. 
Not  only  must  the  greatness  of  her  concjuest  evoke  our  admira- 
tion, but  the  qualities  of  civilisation  she  has  afterwards  imposed, 
the  peace,  the  commerce,  the  comparative  happiness  and  well- 
being  of  the  people,  should  also  win  our  sincere  respect. 


> 


I 


, 


I 


. 


) 


\ 


CHAPTER   XIX 

NEW    BOKHARA    AND    ITS    PROSPECTS 

RUSSIA  has  been  very  careful  not  to  annex  the  Khanate  of 
Bokhara.    She  had  enough  on  her  hands  in  Central  Asia 
without  undertaking  direct  responsibility  for  the  government  of 
three  million  fanatical  ^lussulmans,  who  have  never  learned  the 
lesson  that  Skobelef  administered  to  the  Turkomans.     So  she 
made  it  into  a  Protected  State,  therel)y  securing  all  the  advan- 
ages  of  control  and  commerce,  without  assuming  the  obligation 
of' good  government.     She  has  nothing  to  fear  from  Bokhara; 
the'  Amir  is  a  nonentity,  mentally   and  physically  exhausted, 
though  not  yet  forty;  her  own  territory  is  on  both  sides  of  it;  her 
main  railway  runs  within  ten  miles  of  the  capital  and  could  bring 
a  small  army  in  a  day;   by  her  control  of  the  Zarafshan  she  has 
Bokhara  at  her  mercy,  for  she  could  cut  ofi  the  water-supply 
and  ruin  every  crop  at  once;  and  no  trade  except  Russian  is  per- 
mitted.    So  the  Bokharans  are  left  in  their  original  dirt  and 
cruelty  and  corruption,  nominally  under  the  rule  of  their  own 
sovereign.     He,  however,  does  not  greatly  appreciate  his  posi- 
tion, for  he  spends  all  his  time  at  a  hunting  lodge  near  Termene, 
the  fifth  station  up  the  line  beyond  the  capital,  44  miles  away, 
his  passion  being  for  falconry— a  sport  the  local  importance  of 
which  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  principal  Minister  of 
State  is  called  Khuc  Bcgi.  "  Chief  of  the  Falconers."    He  receives 
reports,  however,  every  day,  brought  by  relays  of  horsemen  who 
cover  the  distance  in  three  hours— the  railway  taking  four!     In 
his  capital  his  prestige  is  gone,  and  he  dislikes  the  vicinity  of  his 
Russian  masters,  but  on  the  rare  occasions— sometimes  not  once 


2^7 


m 


K 


I 


'f. 


\\ 


a88 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 


in  a  year — when  he  visits  Bokhara  he  sharply  reminds  his  people 
of  h^^.  existence  hy  takino- a  dozen  cc^ndennied  wretches  from  the 
prison  and  haviiii;-  their  throats  cnt  in  the  open  ])azaar.  1  said 
that  Russia  had  left  Bokhara  in  its  original  cruelty,  but  this  is 
not  quite  accurate.  She  has  abolished  the  open  sale  of  slaves  and 
the  native  method  of  execution  by  trussini^  hapless  criminals 
Hke  fowls  and  thnoing  them  from  the  top  of  the  i^reat  tower. 
But  otherwise  she  has  left  Bokhara  as  it  was,  and,  above  all,  she 
has  left  untouched  the  prison  of  execrable  memory.  Here  it  was 
that  the  two  En<^lish  ofhcers,  Stoddart  and  Connolly,  sent  on  a 
dii)lomatic  mission  from  the  Indian  (iinernment  about  sixty 
years  a^^^o,  were  thmi;-  into  the  pit  where  sheep-ticks,  most  loath- 
some of  insects,  ornawed  the  t1esh  from  the  bones  of  livin^  men. 

When  the  Russians  reached  l)okhara  witli  their  railway  they 
were  rather  afraid  of  the  nati\es,  and  as  a  measure  of  precaiuion 
they  created  New  I'okhara.  eiL;ht  miles  from  Old  Bokhara,  and 
placed  the  station  there.  Now  they  realise  that  their  caution 
was  excessive,  and  wish  they  had  orio^inally  j^one  straight  to  the 
town,  and  thus  avoided  the  necessity  of  buildiuf^  a  l)ranch  railway 
to  connect  it  with  the  main  line.  New  l)okhara  consists  of  a  few 
European  houses,  the  Residency  and  offices,  and  a  clean  and 
comfortable  little  hostelry,  called  the  Hotel  d'luirope,  kept  l)y  a 
worthv  German  and  his  wife.  The  Amir  maintains  a  suite  of 
rooms  in  a  native  house  in  the  old  city  for  the  use  of  the  Resi- 
dent, who  therein-  avoids  disturbini^  the  |)opulace  by  too  nuich 
show  of  foreii^n  dominion.  M.  I^natieff  was  so  kind  as  to  allow 
me  to  use  these  rooms,  as  there  is  of  course  no  place  in  the  native 
citv  where  a  foreii^ner  can  even  take  a  meal. 

The  Resident  has  a  personal  escort  of  about  a  score  of  Cos- 
sacks, and  there  is  a  detachment  of  railway  sa})pers.  who  do 
technical  work  and  furnish  C2:uards  for  the  bank,  post-oftice.  etc. 
The  Amir,  on  the  other  hand — and  the  contrast  is  instructive — 
is  allowed  to  keep  a  so-called  army  of  30.000  men  in  the  whole 
country,  10,000  of  whom  are  in  the  city  of  Bokhara.     In  spite 


NEW    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    PROSPECTS     289 

of  their  scarlet  trousers  they  can  hardly  be  called  soldiers,  and 
their  best  weapons  are  a  few  thousand  old  rifles  given  them  by 
Russia,  with  old-fashioned  triangular  bayonets.  Concerning 
these  ritles.  and  bearing  their  origin  in  mind,  my  meaning  will 
doubtless  be  obvious  when  I  say  that  I  should  be  quite  willing 
to  let  a  Bisley  marksman  shoot  at  me  at  a  hundred  yards  with 
one  of  them.  And  while  speaking  of  the  Bokharan  army  I 
must  repeat  a  pleasant  story  1  read  somewhere.  The  Amir's 
forces  were  once  exhibiting  theiuselves  at  a  field-day  before  a 
Russian  general.  Suddenly,  to  his  intense  surprise,  all  the  men 
in  the  front  line  threw  themselves  upon  their  backs  and  w^aved 
their  legs  in  the  air.  But  he  was  more  astonished  still  when,  in 
reply  to  his  inquiry  as  to  the  military  purport  of  this  remarkable 
manoeuvre,  he  was  assured  that  it  was  exactly  copied  from  the 
Russian  drill !  The  explanation  turned  out  to  be  that  once  when 
Russian  troops  were  attacking,  they  had  been  obliged  to  ford 
a  stream  waist-deep,  and  on  gaining  the  bank  they  had  all  lain 
down  and  lifted  up  their  legs  to  let  the  water  run  out  of  their  long 
boots.  The  Bokharans,  attributing  the  victory  which  immedi- 
ately followed  to  this  impressive  stratagem,  had  promptly  incor- 
porated it  in  their  own  tactics. 

Political  writers  about  Central  Asia  often  speculate  upon  the 
possil)ility  of  a  Mussulman  rising  against  Russia  there,  and  as 
Bokhara  is  undoubtedly  the  most  fanatical  country,  this  seems 
the  place  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject.  If  there  should  ever 
be  a  real  Pan-Islamic  movement — if  the  Mussulman  world  should 
ever  be  inspired  with  a  common  religious  fervour  against  the 
Cross,  then  of  course  the  Crescent  would  be  raised  in  Central 
Asia  also,  and  the  Russians  would  have  all  they  could  do  for  a 
short  time.  And  such  an  outburst  is  not  quite  as  improbable  as 
most  people  think.  It  will  hardly  come  from  the  appeals  and 
intrigues  of  the  ruler  of  the  Ottoman  Turks  in  Constantinople, 
who  enjoys  among  millions  of  his  co-religionists  no  loftier  title 
than  ''  Sultan  of  Roum,"  although  the  fact  is  remarkable  that  cer- 


|] 


... »» ^ »- 


2i)0 


ALL   rni:  lu  sslvs 


lain  cuiumunitio  whu  IiuIktiu  acknnu  lol-cl   nn  alk-iancc  to 
hini.  as  m  Tripoli,  for  instance,  now  accept  the  oMi-aihai  ui  imli- 
tary\crvicc   tor  tlie   dciciicc   m    l.lain.   l)iil   many   liulc  H-n^— 
such  as  the  collcclu.n  of  £_'.ooo  !>>  the  J;///nm///-/  /.A.'m  ni  IVm- 
bav   for  the  projected    r)ania>cn>-Mecca   raihvay-^^shnw   that   it 
is  not  altogether  ont  of  the  .pu-tmn.      Alter  the  revolt  in   l-er- 
gana  in    1898  the   Russian  anth..rities  were  very  anxiuu>  tor  a 
tune  about  the  state  of  Bokhara,  and  the  tele-raph  line  to  Tash- 
kent was  monopolised  with  military  conver^allons.     CuriouTy 
enough,  at  that  very  moment  a  Russian  railway  watchman  was 
killed  by  a  native.    The  latter  was  tried  by  a  Court  consisting  of 
the  Acting  Resident  and  two  native  Begs,  and  was  condemned 
to   death.     And   then  the   Russians  played  one   of  those   little 
master-strokes  of  policy  which,  insignificant  in  themselves,  con- 
tribute so  largely  to  their  success  with  Oriental  races.     Instead 
of  making  a  mystery  and  conferring  great  importance  upon  the 
incident  by  executing  the  murderer  in  the  Russian  town,  with 
all  the  elaborate  ceremonial  of  a  European  death-penalty,  they 
simplv  handed  him  over  to  the  Bokharan  authorities,  who  cut 
his  throat  in  the  bazaar  in  the  good  old  way.     This  completely 
reassured  the  native  authorities,  who  had  believed  that  the  Rus- 
sian would  treat  the  murder  as  a  political  offence,  and  make 
it  an  excuse  for  annexing  the  country. 

The  war  between  Turkey  and  (h-eece.  again,  produced  a  con- 
siderable impression  in  Bokhara,  and  the  news  was  eagerly  dis- 
cussed in  the  bazaars.  The  Resident  discovered  some  Turks  from 
Egypt,  fomenting  religious  feeling,  and  the  Political  Agent  at 
Tashkent  told  me  that  he  had  found  and  arrested  several  fanatical 
nwllahs  from  Constantinople.  On  one  Eriday  evening  T  was  en- 
al)led  by  a  Russian  friend,  who  is  an  acute  and  sympathetic  stu- 
dent of  native  life,  to  enjoy  the  rare  advantage  of  being  present 
at  the  regular  prayers  of  a  widespread  dervish  sect  in  one  of  the 
chief  towns,  and  nobody  could  witness  the  profound  attention 
of  the  crowd  at  first,  gradually  growing  into  fanatical  fervour. 


NEW    BOKHARA    AND    llS    IM^OSPECTS     291 

and  finally  reacln'ng  a  height  of  religious  madness  when  anvtiiing 
would  ha\  e  been  possible,  the  whole  crowd  swaying  rapidl)  and 
abrujiily  back  and  forth  to  tlic  deafening  rhythmic  staccato  shout 
of  )'(/  hoii!  )■(/  lia/c! — and  not  realise  that  the  tinder  and  the 
spark  are  never  very  far  apart  in  Central  Asia.  Eor  these  men, 
barking  like  mad  wolves  under  the  temporary  swav  of  religious 
h}pnolism,  were  not  i)erforming  for  Christian  money,  like  the 
dervish  mummers  of  Cairo,  but  were  just  pious  Mussulmans 
come  to  prayers  and  in  many  cases  plainly  drawn  into  the  vor- 
tex in  spite  of  themselves.  But  a  Russian  fort  was  not  two  miles 
away,  and  at  a  warning  gun  four  thousand  men  would  have 
sprung  to  arms.  Pan-Eslamism,  even  if  it  should  break  fcjrth, 
would  accomplish  nothing  in  Russian  Asia — unless  Russia  her- 
self should  be  fighting  for  her  life  elsewhere. 

A  local  revolt  in  Bokhara,  however,  is  another  matter,  and 
upon  this  I  have  a  decided  opinion,  namely,  that  it  is  more  than 
probable.  But  it  will  be  a  revolt  in  favour  of  Russia,  not  against 
her.  Government  in  Bokhara  under  Russian  protection  is,  as  I 
have  said,  almost  as  bad  as  under  unmitigated  native  oppression, 
and  in  the  matter  of  tax-gathering — always  more  considered  by 
a  native  than  life  and  liberty — it  is  cjuite  as  bad.  X'ow^  the  Bok- 
liaran  looks  across  the  border  into  Samarkand,  and  sees  that  his 
fellows  under  Russian  rule,  men  with  neither  more  land  nor  more 
fertile  land  than  himself,  are  contented  and  comparatively  rich, 
and  know  precisely  what  their  obligations  are  and  how^  much 
money  the  tax-collector  will  require  of  them;  while  they  them- 
selves know  neither,  and  must  live  at  the  mercy  and  the  whim  of 
every  cruel  and  rapacious  of^cial.  Therefore  the  prospect  is  that 
sooner  or  later,  when  they  have  outgrown  their  dislike  of  the  infi- 
del, the  Bokharans  will  demand  to  be  taken  under  Russian  gov- 
ernment. One  informant  assured  me  that  this  would  have  been 
done  before  now  except  for  the  fact  that  wdien  the  Amir  visited 
the  Tsar  at  his  coronation  the  latter  promised  him  that  no  change 
should  be  made  in  the  status  of  Bokhara  while  he  reigned,  and  that 


i  / 


.^iX-.-*  'x. -«,'«. 


-, -^.^  '^  -■'.  . «-„_. . •    j->-5k .=. 


292 


ALL    THK    RUSSL\S 


consequently  if  the  Amir  dies  l)efore  the  Tsar  another  Amir  will  be 
allowed  to  rule.    But  even  in  this  case  a  stricter  supervision  would 
probably  be  exercised,  especially  as  regards  taxing-  the  people. 
Indeed  there  are  other  signs  that  a  change  in  this  direction  is 
coming,  for  a  handsome  new  palace  is  being  l)uilt  halfway  between 
New  and  Old  Bokhara,  the  intention— it  was  M.  Lessar's  idea- 
being  that  the  Amir  shall  have  some  luting  place  in  which  to 
receiAe  the  Russian  authorities,  who  will  doubtless  take  advantage 
of  more  frequent  interviews  to  exert  a  more  extended  intluence. 
But  meanwhile,  Russia  has  clearly  had  every  advantage  in  leaving 
things  as  they  are,  and  up  to  the  present  her  tendency  has  been 
rather  to  shift  burdens  on  to  the  Amir's  shoulders  than  to  relieve 
him  of  any— as  in  the  cession  to  Bokhara  of  Roshan  and  Shignan 
from  the  British  sphere.    This  is  not  at  all  to  the  taste  of  the  mili- 
tary caste  in  Tashkent  and  Merv,  who  would  like  nothing  so  much 
as  an  order  to  march  on  Bokhara,  in  view  of  the  ease  of  the 
campaign,  and  the  shower  of  crosses,  medals,  and  promotions 

that  would  follow. 

The  Trans-Caspian  Railway  has,  of  course,  wrought  a  revolu- 
tion since  it  reached  the  valley  of  the  Zarafshan.    In  pre-railway 
days  Bokhara's  connection  with  Russia  was  by  the  old  caravan 
route  via  Kazalinsk  and  Orenburg,  when  the  cost  of  transport 
was  three  roubles  a  pond  and  the  journey  depended  on  so  many 
accidental  circutnstances— a  scarcity  of  camels,  for  instance- 
that  its  duration  could  never  be  foreseen,  and  goods  sometimes 
remained  at  Kazalinsk  for  months,  spoiling,  while  all  the  risks 
were  the  sender's,  since  nobody  would  grant  insurances  against 
them.     Up  to  1887  Russia  sent  to  lU^khara  iron,  crockery,  sugar, 
cheap  safes,  oils  and  colours,  to  the  extent  of  about  8,000  tons  a 
year,  and  P.okhara  exi)orte(l  to  Russia  and  to  Turkestan  some 
16,000  tons  of  cotton,  wool,  sheep-skins,  goat-skins  and  karakul 
—the  lamb-skin  we  know  as  ''  astrachan."     At  this  time,  how- 
ever, Bokhara  enjoyed  a  trade  of  over  3.000  tons  a  year  with 
India,  via  Afghanistan,  imj)orting  indigo,  green  tea,  and  Eng- 


NEW    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    PROSPECTS     293 

lish  manufactures,  but  the  new  railway  enabled  }^Ioscow  manu- 
facturers to  flood  the  market  with  cheap  manufactured  articles, 
driving  out  the  better  but  dearer  English  goods,  a  process  which 
the  Russian  Government  completed  when  necessary  by  prohibi- 
tive tariffs.  Bokhara  was  the  depot  for  tea  and  indigo  for  the 
whole  country,  and  it  now  gets,  via  Meshed,  Askhabad,  Dushak, 
and  Kaakhka,  the  remnant  of  what  used  to  reach  it  from  Kabul. 
For  sugar  Russia  has  established  depots  at  Bokhara  and  remits 
the  excise  and  pays  a  bounty  upon  all  that  is  sold  there.  Bok- 
haran  imports  have  risen  from  8,000  tons  in  1887  to  over  42,000 
tons  in  1896,  but  exports  have  not  risen  in  proportion,  having 
never  exceeded  21,000  tons.  This  discrepancy  is  attributed  by 
the  local  authority  I  have  previously  quoted  to  four  causes:  the 
limited  sphere  which  is  really  tapped  by  the  railway,  and  the  in- 
difference of  merchants  to  districts  distant  from  the  railway,  with- 
out waggon-roads  or  regular  communication  by  the  Amu  Darya; 
the  rapid  growth  of  new  needs  among  natives  served  by  the 
railway;  the  difficulty  in  the  cultivation  of  American  cotton 
owine  to  the  uncertaintv  of  water  supply;  and  the  truly  Ori- 
ental  carelessness  of  the  Bokharan  Government  regarding  its 
products — for  example,  twenty-five  years  ago  the  silkworm  in- 
dustry flourished  and  is  now  in  decay.  When  these  conditions, 
however,  are  removed.  Bokhara  will  once  more  be  in  a  position 
to  export  in  proportion  to  its  imports,  for,  thanks  to  the  railway, 
which  carries  wheat  at  the  very  low^  rate  of  i/iooth  of  a  kopeck 
per  pond  per  verst,  grain  can  be  bought  as  cheaply  as  it  can  be 
grown,  and  the  land  thus  left  free  for  more  valuable  crops.  More- 
over, as  in  1893-4,  the  railway  will  render  famine  from  bad  har- 
vests impossible.  The  principal  new  objects  which  the  railway  has 
taught  the  natives  to  use  are  kerosene,  building  materials,  passe- 
menterie.  and  stearine  candles.  The  consumption  of  these  arti- 
cles increases  regularly,  but  with  the  exception  of  candles,  which 
go  as  far  as  Afghanistan,  they  do  not  yet  reach  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  Khanate. 


i 


1 


,  »»..-iJ.^X.  ■^^•^'^•t. 


•'S^*.  ^  a^^-T-'tr'-C^-c: 


,^  ^-*#  '  -^ 


294 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


Before  the  railway  came,  capital  could  hardly  turn  over  once 
a  vear,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  communications  with  luirope, 
and  therefore  Russian  commerce  was  confined  to  a  few  wealthy 
Bokharan  merchants.  lUit  now  that  ^oods  can  l)e  deliverod  in 
Moscow  in  from  35  to  40  days,  direct  relations  are  |)c\Nsi])le  even 
to  small  capitalists,  and  the  natixes  take  ever}-  advantai^e  of  this, 
with  the  result  that  competition  is  \er\-  keen  and  the  ])eople  en- 
jov  the  lowest  possible  prices.  The  establishment  of  elementar\- 
processes  of  manufacture,  on  the  other  hand,  such  as  cleaninp^, 
packing,  tanning-,  has  ((uadrupled  wa^es,  and  cultivated  land  has 
risen  enormously  in  value.  My  Bokharan  authority  claims,  and 
rightly,  I  think,  that  the  two  facts  (i)  that  a  total  annual  trade  of 
£3,000,000  is  done  by  a  population  of  3,000.000  souls,  one  half  of 
whom  take  no  part  whatever  either  in  producing  or  ptirchasing; 
and  (2)  that  the  imports  are  3.000.000  roubles  more  in  value  than 
the  exports,  show  that  the  trade  of  ])okhara  must  necessarily 
increase  largely,  as  soon  as  the  conditions  which  prevent  the 
greater  part  of  the  mountainous  regions  of  the  Khanate  from 
taking  any  share  in  the  commerce  with  luiropean  Russia  are 
changed.  It  is  confidently  held,  too,  that  the  mountainous  dis- 
tricts of  Bokhara  are  the  nattiral  half-way  house  of  trade  between 
Moscow  and  Afghanistan.  At  present  there  are  no  direct  rela- 
tions, although  I>okharan  merchants  bring  every  year  a  certain 
amount  of  ])roduce.  chietly  karahiil,  from  Afghanistan  and  send 
it  to  the  fair  of  Nijni  Novgorod,  paying  for  it  in  iron,  cotton, 
sugar  and  candles,  but  the  natural  trade  route  to  Kabul,  well- 
known  to  the  Afghans,  runs  through  Bokhara,  and  therefore 
in  the  future  Russian  mantifacttires  should  be  exchanged  for 
Afo-han  raw  materials  zi'a  B(A'hara.  Then  Bokhara  will  stand  to 
Afghanistan  in  a  relation  similar  to  that  of  Trans-Caspia  to  Per- 
sia, but  more  favourably,  for  whereas  Trans-Caspia  trades  with 
only  one  province,  Khorassan.  lUikhara  will  exchange  with  tbe 
whole  rich  and  densely  populated  northern  part  of  Afghanistan, 
beginning  with  Kabul,  which  has  an  area  equal  to  the  whole  of 


NEW    BOKHARA    AND    ITS    PROSPECTS     295 

Bokhara,  and  which,  when  the  roads  are  somewhat  improved, 
will  be  able  to  seek  an  outlet  for  its  products  in  Bokhara,  rather 
than  send  them  over  the  difficult  mountains  to  the  south,  to  find 
a  market  in  the  direction  of  Kandahar.  So,  at  least,  they  believe 
in  liokhara.  but  apart  from  other  considerations,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  development  of  a  trade  route  over  the  Murghab  branch 
line  to  Kushk  and  Herat,  if  England  and  Russia  should  agree 
upon  it,  would  upset  most  of  their  calctilations. 

'i'here  is  one  other  industry  that  should  be  mentioned,  for 
although  it  has  only  jtist  been  started,  its  success — and  the  few 
who  have  invested  in  it  have  a  firm  faith  in  its  future — would 
have  an  enormous  influence  upon  the  development  of  Bok- 
hara. I  refer  to  gold-mining.  It  would  seem  inherently  prob- 
able that  in  such  a  mountainous  country  as  a  large  part  of 
Bokhara  minerals  would  be  found,  and  gold  in  paying  quantities 
may  well  be  among  them.  Two  Russian  commercial  residents 
have  begun  the  work  of  seriously  developing  one  district  known 
to  be  gold-bearing.  Their  mine  is  530  miles  from  Bokhara  city, 
and  at  present  can  only  be  reached  on  horseback.  They  hold  a 
concession  of  seven  properties,  each  two  versts  square,  and  one 
of  these  they  are  working.  They  have  reached  the  gold-bearing 
stratum  at  a  depth  of  fifteen  metres,  and  they  were  getting  one 
zolotnik  of  gold  from  every  hundred  pouds  of  dirt  washed — say 
2  dwt.  to  the  ton.  They  pay  the  Amir  a  royalty  of  five  per  cent, 
of  the  gold  produced,  and  an  annual  rent  of  about  two  shillings 
an  acre.  Against  the  small  returns  of  gold  may  be  set  the  fact 
that  labour  is  ])lentiful  and  wages  are  from  sixpence  to  eight- 
pence  a  day,  and  that  there  is  abundance  of  water.  The  owners 
of  this  concession  are  very  anxious  to  get  foreign  capital  to  help 
them  to  prove  and  develop  their  six  remaining  properties. 

My  lady  readers  may  like  to  know  something  of  the  origin 
of  the  fur  which  becomes  them  so  well,  known  to  them  as  "  astra- 
chan  "  (Astrakhan  used  to  be  its  port  of  entry  into  Russia)  or 
"  Persian  lamb,"  and  to  those  who  produce  it  as  karakul.     It  is 


1 
I 

I 

' 

I 


.    ^  J   *.k-...»    ; 


^.  »*4/.*.^.  ^..*'*.    -'S'   ll*..-*^^ir'-'*^ 


■f    *;-^  W.   — 


.^   •       ••  #    ,      ♦     ^ 


296 


ALL   THK    RUSSIAS 


\ 


the  skin  of  the  very  young  lamb — not  of  the  unl)orn  laml),  as  is 
commonly  believed — and  the  best  comes  from  Afghanistan.  Its 
high  cost  is  due  to  the  heavy  export  duty  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan 
places  upon  it,  which  his  sul)jects  regularly  try  to  evade  by  smug- 
gling. In  Bokhara  the  Afghan  skins  are  nnxed  in  parcels  of  ten 
with  inferior  local  skins,  and  thence  they  go  to  Novgorod,  to 
Moscow  and  especially  to  the  great  annual  fur  fair  c^f  the  world 
at  Leipzig.  Only  the  best  are  kept  for  sale  in  Central  Asia, 
and  for  these  the  Russian  dealers  give  about  t,2  roubles— £3. 7s., 
^i5_^o — for  ten  skins,  though  the  best  single  skin  will  fetch  as 
much  as  fifteen  shillings— $3.60.  1  bought  excellent  grey  skins 
in  Titlis  at  the  rate  of  28  roubles  for  ten.  Another  curious  Bok- 
haran  export,  of  which  also  those  who  use  it  do  not  gtiess  the 
source,  is  sheep's  guts,  prepared  for  violin  strings  under  the 
supervision  of  Russian  workmen. 

I  remarked  above  that  the  natives  had  imported  for  them- 
selves since  the  railway  came,  and  that  ])rices  of  luiropean  goods 
rule  very  low  in  liokhara.     This  is  partly  due  to  a  very  ])eculiar 
system  of  trading  which  prevails  there.     There  is  now  only  one 
firm  of  Russian  importers  in  the  cUy,  and  the  native  merchants, 
the  Sarts,  have  been  accustomed  to  conduct  their  l)usincss  as 
follows.     Thev  go  to  Moscow  themselves,  give  their  orders,  get 
long  credit,  return  to  Bokhara,  sell  their  goods  for  less  than  they 
paid  for  them,  and  invest  the  cash  thus  raised  in  cotton  or  silk 
or  skins.     In  a  good  year  their  profits  cover  their  loss  and  leave 
a  handsome  balance.     In  a  l)ad  year  they  fail  and  pay  fifteen  or 
twenty  kopecks  on  the  roul)le.     The  Moscow  merchants  know 
that  when  a  man  has  paid  for  four  or  five  years  in  succession  he 
is  sure  tc  go  under,  but  their  profits  have  been  so  good  that  if 
they  were  paid  for  four  years  they  could  well  afford  to  lose  the 
fifth.      Now,   however,   the  Trans-Sil)erian   Railway   has   given 
them  so  much  more  to  do  that  they  care  less   about   Central 
Asian  trade  and  are  refusing  the  old  long  credit. 


I 


I 


f 


t 


I 


CHAPTER    XX 

OLD    BOKHARA    AND    ITS    HORRORS 

T  has  eleven  gates,  and  a  circumference  of  fifteen  English 
_   miles;  three  hundred  and  sixty  mosques,  twenty-two  cara- 
vanserays,  many  baths  and  bazaars,  and  the  old  palace  called  Ark, 
built  by  Arslan  Khan  one  thousand  years  ago,  and  has  about 
one  hundred  splendid  colleges."     So  wrote  of  old  Bokhara  that 
singular  divine,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wolff,  sixty  years  ago.  one  of  the 
very  few  Europeans  to  visit  it  before  the  conquering  Russian 
army,  a  witness  to  w^hom  I  shall  presently  recur.     Like  all  the 
East,  alas,  Bokhara  is  no  longer  what  it  was,  but  it  is  a  mightily 
impressive  city  all  the  same.    And  the  more  so  because  it  is  among 
the  rare  places  where  the  Oriental  does  not  cringe  to  the  white 
face.     One  notices  a  distinct  difference  in  the  attitude  of  the 
natives  toward  foreigners  here,  from  that  of  the  Turkomans  of 
Trans-Caspia  and  the  Sarts  of  Samarkand.    The  Turkomans  were 
crushed  by  Skobelef  at  Geok  Tepe  once  for  all;   they  will  never 
lift  a  hand  again.     The  Sarts  are  urban  and  mercantile  people, 
and  are  wholly  resigned  to  the  present  regime.    The  Bokharans, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  still  nominally  a  free  race.    They  see  few 
strangers,  and  they  dislike  them  intensely.    As  you  go  about  the 
crowded  narrow  streets  of  Bokhara  you  meet  with  studied  in- 
difference or  black  looks,  except  from  the  Jews,  and  it  is  easy 
to   see   that   indiscreet   action  would  provoke   instant   reprisals 
against  yourself.    This  is  one  reason  why  the  Russian  authorities 
do  not  encourage  visitors  to  Bokhara,  and  indeed  some  passports 
issued  for  Central  Asia  include  it  with  the  Alurghab  branch  of 

the  railway  as  a  forbidden  place. 

297 


i 
i 

H 


i! 


,  v-»>  V  •'---*'■*  ' 


•  «'..  >  .»»•'.  .»>-</»>—•-.  t.- '.  »i  ■»v».•-.,.^*. •«"*•' 


.*...».     .> 


->•     ^ 


r  .   %.    »  .  ^-  .  *   -^  -   ' 


I    ,1 


296 


ALL    THE    RUSSL\S 


the  skin  of  the  very  young  lamb — not  of  the  unborn  lami),  as  is 
commonly  believed — and  the  best  conies  from  Afohanistan.  Its 
high  cost  is  due  to  the  heavy  export  duty  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan 
places  upon  it,  which  his  sul)jects  regularly  try  to  evade  l)y  smug- 
gling. In  Bokhara  the  Afghan  skins  are  mixed  in  parcels  of  ten 
with  inferior  local  skins,  and  thence  they  go  to  Novgorod,  to 
Moscow  and  especially  to  the  great  annual  fur  fair  of  the  world 
at  Leipzig.  Only  the  best  are  kept  for  sale  in  Central  Asia, 
and  for  these  the  Russian  dealers  give  about  32  roubles— £3. /S., 
$j5.30 — for  ten  skins,  though  the  best  single  skin  will  fetch  as 
much  as  fifteen  shillings— $3.60.  I  bought  excellent  grey  skins 
in  Titlis  at  the  rate  of  2^  roubles  for  ten.  Another  curious  Bok- 
haran  export,  of  which  also  those  who  use  it  do  not  guess  the 
source,  is  sheep's  guts,  pt-ei)ared  for  violin  strings  under  the 
supervision  of  Russian  workmen. 

I  remarked  above  that  the  natives  had  imported  for  them- 
selves since  the  railway  came,  and  that  prices  of  European  goods 
rule  very  low  in  Bokhara.     This  is  partly  due  to  a  very  peculiar 
system  of  trading  which  prevails  there.     There  is  now  only  one 
firm  of  Russian  importers  in  the  city,  and  the  native  merchants, 
the  Sarts,  have  been  accustoiued  to  conduct  their  business  as 
follows.     They  go  to  Moscow  themselves,  give  their  orders,  get 
long  credit,  return  to  Bokhara,  sell  their  goods  for  less  than  they 
paid  for  them,  and  invest  the  cash  thus  raised  in  cotton  or  silk 
or  skins.     In  a  good  year  their  profits  cover  their  loss  and  leave 
a  handsome  balance.     In  a  bad  year  they  fail  and  pay  fifteen  or 
twenty  kopecks  on  the  rouble.     The  ?^Ioscow  merchants  know 
that  when  a  luan  has  paid  for  four  or  five  years  in  succession  he 
is  sure  to  go  under,  but  their  profits  have  been  so  good  that  if 
they  were  paid  for  four  years  they  could  well  afford  to  lose  the 
fifth.      Now,   however,   the   Trans-Si1)erian   Railway   has   given 
them  so  much  more  to  do  that  they  care  less   about   Central 
Asian  trade  and  are  refusing  the  old  long  credit. 


1 


r 


! 


I 


CHAPTER   XX 

OLD  BOKHARA  AND  ITS  HORRORS 

T  has  eleven  gates,  and  a  circumference  of  fifteen  English 
_   miles;  three  hundred  and  sixty  mosques,  twenty-two  cara- 
vanserays,  many  baths  and  bazaars,  and  the  old  palace  called  Ark, 
built  by  Arslan  Khan  one  thousand  years  ago,  and  has  about 
one  hundred  splendid  colleges."     So  wrote  of  old  Bokhara  that 
singular  divine,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wolff,  sixty  years  ago,  one  of  the 
very  few  Europeans  to  visit  it  before  the  conquering  Russian 
army,  a  witness  to  whom  I  shall  presently  recur.     Like  all  the 
East,  alas,  Bokhara  is  no  longer  what  it  was,  but  it  is  a  mightily 
impressive  city  all  the  same.    And  the  more  so  because  it  is  among 
the  rare  places  where  the  Oriental  does  not  cringe  to  the  white 
face.     One  notices  a  distinct  difference  in  the  attitude  of  the 
natives  toward  foreigners  here,  from  that  of  the  Turkomans  of 
Trans-Caspia  and  the  Sarts  of  Samarkand.    The  Turkomans  were 
crushed  by  Skobelef  at  Geok  Tepe  once  for  all;   they  will  never 
lift  a  hand  again.     The  Sarts  are  urban  and  mercantile  people, 
and  are  wholly  resigned  to  the  present  regime.    The  Bokharans, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  still  nominally  a  free  race.    They  see  few 
strangers,  and  they  dislike  them  intensely.    As  you  go  about  the 
crowded  narrow  streets  of  Bokhara  you  meet  with  studied  in- 
difference or  black  looks,  except  from  the  Jews,  and  it  is  easy 
to   see  that  indiscreet  action  would  provoke   instant   reprisals 
against  yourself.    This  is  one  reason  why  the  Russian  authorities 
do  not  encourage  visitors  to  Bokhara,  and  indeed  some  passports 
issued  for  Central  Asia  include  it  with  the  Murghab  branch  of 

the  railway  as  a  forbidden  place. 

297 


i 


f  I 


i 


(1 


I 


—  ^-.     w..^^    '^^fc   ^-Mi  11  % ^  iii.'i  i 


La  ■  <  Wliii^  i»i  i  '-'■  -'^  ■*'  *-Jfc...  ^■«a^--^  •''•*»"^B*  -f-^ir  V~  i 


•  -k> 


1 .  '.  I, .  '  W  •v«'-.^\*  r.w****'^  I 


*;**->€■*<; 


»..at...»w.  •»  m 


t 


agS 


ALL    IHi:    RUSSIAS 


When  I  was  there  the  new  ])ranch  Hne  from  tlic  Rn^-ian 
settlement  to  the  native  city  was  not  bnih.  so  1  (h'ovc  ei.i^ht  miles 
alono-  a  tlat,  dnll,  dustv  road,  passing-  to  the  left  the  new  palace 
the  Rnssians  are  hnildini;-  for  the  Amir— a  handsome  heteroi^ene- 
ous  sort  of  strnctnre,  half  Orientrd,  half  lun'opean — and  to  the 
left  an  old  palace  completely  hidden  behind  hii^h  nuid  wall.-. 
Midway  we  stopped  at  a  roadside  hovel  with  a  bio-  water-trough 
in  front,  and  while  the  horses  drank,  the  owner  brought  out 
a  great  gourd  water-pipe,  with  a  red  charcoal  on  top,  and  passed 
it  to  mv  driver,  who  drew  one  deep  inhalation  and  passed  it  to 


City  and  Citadel,  Bokhara. 

another  driver,  who  handed  it  to  a  third,  and  so  on  till  it  had 
been  used  by  the  half-dozen  teamsters  watering  their  beasts  there. 
No  man  even  wiped  the  mouthpiece  as  it  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth.  I  mention  this  incident  because  it  goes  some  way 
toward  justifying  the  statement  of  a  Russian  ])hysician  ([noted 
to  me,  that  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  iidiabitants  of  Bokhara  suffer 
from  the  worst  of  contagious  diseases. 

The  approach  to  the  centre  of  the  city  is  through  a  great 
gateway  in  the  wall,  and  then  by  long,  narrow  streets,  between 
hicrh  walls.     In  the  true  fashion  of  the  East,  where  domestic- 


1 


•ilV^^ir  V.V-*-'  '•■>-•     *  -»■*' 


^•^  <•  ^.*  »>  :3«*»fc  '«%•*.' 


OLD    BOKHARA    AND    ITS    HORRORS     299 

itv  is   of  all  things  most  secret,   the  houses  all   look  inwards, 
presenting  blank  backs,  broken  only  by  a  huge  door,  to  the 
passers-bv.     After  a  mile  or  more  of  these  you  reach  the  great 
covered   bazaar,   with   charming   corners   where   mulberry  trees 
drop  their  fat  berries  into  shaded  ponds,  and  gossiping  men  sit 
sipping  coffee  or  green  tea  and  smoking  the  inevitable  kalian. 
Alreadv  the  convenient  Russian  samovar  is  in  general  use,  and 
indeed  is  made  here.     Each  trade  has  its  own  street.     Workmen 
in  leather,  in  iron,  brass,  tin,  are  hard  at  it,  stitching,  grinding, 
riveting,  hammering,  with  all  the  strange  laliour-saving  dodges 
of  the  machinedess  East.     Much  of  the  bazaar  is  under  a  heavy 
vaulted  roof,  and  here  the  more  valuable  articles  are  exposed — 
books,  stuffs,  the  eml)roidered  skull-caps  worn  by  all,  the  gay 
silk  kJialats,  the  universal  outer  garment  like  a  dressing-gown, 
rolls  of  rainbow-like   watered  silk  from  native  looms,   carpets, 
cottons  and  crockery  from  Moscow,  exquisite  kiirgaus,  ewers  of 
chased  and  hammered  brass— irresistible  to  the  foreign  visitor, 
the  most  characteristic  and  interesting  objects  here.    The  money- 
chano-ers  are  as  usual   conspicuous — Hindus,   with   the  orange 
flame-shaped  caste  marks  on  their  foreheads,  great  heaps  of  little 
brass  coins  and  big  lumps  of  silver  before  them,  and  a  stock  of 
the  beautiful  Bokharan  gold  coins  in  leather  bags  tucked  into 
their  breasts.    The  Jews  are  in  evidence  evervwhere,  recognisable 
by  their  drab  khalats,  square  hats  trimmed  with  fur,  and  the  cord 
round  their  waists.     Anti-Semitism  has  always  reigned  in  Bok- 
hara, and  every  Jew  is  compelled  to  wear  a  cord  round  his  waist. 
The  original  intention  was  that  this  should  be  a  genuine  piece  of 
rope,  but  the  Jew  of  to-day  obeys  the  letter  and  escapes  the  spirit 
of  the  proscription  by  wearing  a  thin  silk  cord,  or  if  he  is  poor, 
just  a  little  bit  of  string. 

Twelve  or  fourteen  years  ago  this  bazaar  was  filled  with  Eng- 
lish goods,  but  the  Russians  deliberately  set  about  killing  that 
trade"!  and  the  long  credits  of  the  Moscow  merchants  helped. 
Now  nothing  is  English  but  the  f^ne  muslin  used  for  the  volu- 


V  .5 


y^ 


U 


mmr. 


I 


<'"!<, 

I 


298 


ALL    THK    RUSSL^S 


When  I  was  there  the  new  l)ranch  Hue  from  the  "Rnssian 
settlement  to  the  native  city  was  not  1)uiU,  so  1  (h^ove  ei.^ht  miles 
alonj^  a  tlat,  (hill,  (histy  road,  passing-  to  the  left  the  new  ])alace 
the  Rnssians  are  hniUHng  for  the  Annr— a  handsome  heteros^ene- 
ous  sort  of  strnctnre,  hah  Orientrd,  hah*  lun-opean— and  to  the 
left  an  old  palace  completely  hidden  l)ehind  hioh  mnd  walls. 
Midway  we  stopped  at  a  roadside  liovel  with  a  l)ii;-  water-troui^h 
in  front,  and  while  the  horses  drank,  the  owner  bronj^ht  out 
a  great  gourd  water-pipe,  with  a  red  charcoal  on  top,  and  passed 
it  to  my  driver,  who  drew  one  (\(^cu  inhalation  and  passed  it  to 


City  and  Citadel,  Bokhara. 

another  driver,  who  handed  it  to  a  third,  and  -o  on  till  it  had 
been  used  by  the  half-dozen  teamsters  watering  their  l)ea>ts  there. 
No  man  even  wiped  the  mouthj)iece  a>  it  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth.  I  mention  this  incident  because  it  goes  some  way 
toward  justifving  the  statement  of  a  Russian  phvsician  rpuned 
to  me,  that  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Cokliara  sutter 
from  the  worst  of  contagious  diseases. 

The  approach  to  the  centre  of  the  city  is  through  a  great 
gateway  in  the  wall,  and  then  bv  long,  narrow  streets,  between 
hieh  walls.     In  the  true  fashion   of  the  East,  where  domestic- 


I 


! 


OLD    BOKHARA    AND    LFS    HORRORS     299 

ity  is  of  all  things  most  secret,   the  houses  all  look  inwards, 
presenting  blank  backs,  broken   only  by  a  huge  door,   to  the 
passers-by.     After  a  mile  or  more  of  these  you  reach  the  great 
covered  bazaar,   with  charming  corners   where   mulberry  trees 
drop  their  fat  berries  into  shaded  ponds,  and  gossiping  men  sit 
sipping  coffee  or  green  tea  and  smoking  the  inevitable  kalian. 
Alreadv  the  convenient  Russian  samovar  is  in  general  use,  and 
indeed  is  made  here.     Each  trade  has  its  own  street.     Workmen 
in  leather,  in  iron,  brass,  tin,  are  hard  at  it,  stitching,  grinding, 
riveting,  hammering,  with  all  the  strange  labour-saving  dodges 
of  the  machine-less  East.     :Much  of  the  bazaar  is  under  a  heavy 
vaulted  roof,  and  here  the  more  valuable  articles  are  exposed — 
books,  stuffs,  the  embroidered  skull-caps  worn  by  all,  the  gay 
silk  khalats,  the  universal  outer  garment  like  a  dressing-gown, 
rolls  of  rainbow-like   watered  silk  from  native  looms,  carpets, 
cottons  and  crockery  from  Moscow,  exquisite  kurgaus.  ewers  of 
chased  and  hammered  brass— irresistible  to  the  foreign  visitor, 
the  most  characteristic  and  interesting  objects  here.    The  money- 
chano-ers  are  as  usual  conspicuous — Hindus,  with  the  orange 
flame-shaped  caste  marks  on  their  foreheads,  great  heaps  of  little 
brass  coins  and  big  lumps  of  silver  before  them,  and  a  stock  of 
the  beautiful  rU)kharan  gold  coins  in  leather  bags  tucked  into 
their  breasts.    The  Jews  are  in  evidence  evervwhere.  recogni-^alie 
bv  their  drab  kJialats,  scjuare  hats  trimmed  with  fur,  and  the  cord 
rotmd  their  waists.     Anti-Semitism  has  always  reigned  in  Bok- 
hara, and  everv  Jew  is  compelled  to  wear  a  cord  round  his  waist. 
The  original  intention  was  that  this  should  l)e  a  genuine  piece  of 
rope,  but  the  Jew  of  to-day  obeys  the  letter  and  escapes  the  spirit 
of  the  proscription  by  wearing  a  thin  silk  cord,  or  if  he  is  poor, 
just  a  littlebit  of  string. 

Twelve  or  fourteen  years  ago  this  bazaar  was  filled  with  Eng- 
lish goods,  but  the  Russians  deliberately  set  about  killing  that 
trade,  and  the  long  credits  of  the  ^^loscow  merchants  helped. 
Now  nothincr  is  English  but  the  f^ne  muslin  used  for  the  volu- 


i 


^il 


4;  ■''  '^J 


,'1 


'^ 


V-f'"-*'-*  «»••>••■'•  JiV"/.*,"^'-,*  ■<*.*>:••»*  VW^-t-x*'  tiW"i 


»<   »■  ilti  1 1  m< 


300 


ALL    IHK    RUSSLAS 


I' 


I 


i'" 


\ ' 


1 


nilnous  turbans  (in  Persia  for  shrouding-  tlic  dead),  which  AIcxs- 
cow  cannot  make.  The  natix'C  vehet  of  l)rilHant  colours  runnini;' 
one  into  the  other,  i^rcatlv  achnired  bv  the  IU)kharan,  thous^h 
thin  ami  poor  in  qitaliiW  is  from  14  to  ijh  inches  wide,  and  costs 
from  three  to  fonr  shillings  the  ursliiii  (_'S  inches).  'i"he  watered 
rainbow  silk  of  tlie  same  width  costs  ahont  Js.  the  arsliin.    After 


The  I'ortal  ■.(  tlu-  P.il.Uf,  B<.kh;ira. 

li'U'^  hat^jLilint;-  1  l)ou.i;ht  a  hcanlilul  lira»  kur^^aii.  fifteen  inches 
hi,<;h,  for  six  rouhles. 

Sunday  is  bazaar  da\  in  Uokhara.  and  the  crnwil  i>  extranr- 
dinar}-.  The  road  from  stall  to  stall  is  |)acke<l  with  men  and 
beasts  and  carts,  each  man  shontini;  to  all  the  others  to  <;et  out 
of  his  way,  and  belabouring  the  nearest  beast.  For  those  on 
foot  it  is  one  contjcsted  jostle.  The  mounted  are  of  many 
kinds:  h\g  men  on  little  asses — often  with  veiled  women  sittinji; 
behind  them;    boys  astride   asses'   cruppers   with   sacks   before 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     301 

them;  proud  cavaliers,  magnificent   in  multicoloured  silk  and 
velvet,  on  splendid  horses  of  Arab-like  breed  from  Turkestan; 
camels  with  silent  feet  and  horrid  face  high  above  all  and  pushing 
ruthlessly  through;  every  now  and  then  one  of  the  Amir's  ofticers, 
followed  l)y  his  suite,  preceded  by  grooms  on  foot  smartly  clearing 
a  way  with  sticks;  then  suddenly  the  batclia.  thrust  close  by  the 
crowd,  staring  curiously  at  you  with  wise  old  eyes  in  a  child's 
faee — the  scene  entrances  till  you  weary  of  it,  which  is  soon. 
The  charm  of  the  East  is  in  its  mysteries,  its  thoughts  unuttered, 
its  opinions  veiled,   its  elo(iuent  silence,  the  strange  things  it 
knows  and  does  not  tell :  this  noise  and  pushing  are  of  the  W  est 
vou  know.     Besides,  there  is  too  much  horror  here-the  hot 
smallpox  marks,  the  unmistakable  pallor  of  the  leper,  the  dirty 
bandage  where  the  Bokharan  worm  has  been  pulled  from  the 
tksh   the  feature  rotted  away  from  unnamable  evil,  the  mutda- 
tion  from  gangrenous  wound  or  judicial  torture.     You  shoulder 
vour  wav  to  a  side-street,  in  a  few  minutes  the  bazaar  is  only  a 
distant  surf-like  murmur,  and  you  venture  a  deep  breath  again. 

The  balcha  of  whom  I  have  sp-ken  is  one  of  the  peculiarities 
of  Samarkan.l.     He  is  the  singing  and  dancing  boy.  correspond- 
,„,..  to  the  geisha  of  Japan.     It  is  needless  to  in^iuire  very  closely 
i,Uo  his  career,  which  depends  upon  his  looks  and  gifts,  and  not 
infrequentlv  l,rings  him  wealth  by  the  time  his  beard  comes  and 
he  ■•retires"  but  it  is  an  interesting  and  instructive  tact  about 
Bokharan  life  that  a  number  of  high  ofticials  to-<lay  were  tor- 
nierlv  halchas.  and  I  was  told  that  .luring  my  visit  there  were 
hardlv  anv  left  in  the  city,  as  the  .\mir  had  sent  for  them  all. 
While  1  had  lunch  a  carpet  was  spread  in  the  courtyard  and  a 
hand  of  batchas  was  brought  to  dance  and  sing.     The  natives  took 
the  -reatest  possible  interest  in  the  performance,  crowding  m, 
an<l  appearing  on  every  housetop  around,  but  it  seemed  to  nie  a 
dull  show.     The  singing,  which,  perhaps  fortunately,  I  did  not 
understand,  showed  a  certain  amount  of  training,  but  the  so- 
called  dancing  seemed  aimless,  and  some  of  the  band  were  of  the 


i 


^1 


■kii 


H  .1 


( 


\ 


-•  #--  **-♦ 


|.1%riM.i 


tMC<l*  .tfcH*.  ♦.!*'^  <ft>.«rM*.^kws 


■mMMli 


'^"^  *-.-^'   *^v*     -fc..^^ 


N 


Hi 


i 


il 


302 


ALL    THi:    RUSSIAS 


most  repulsive  ugliness.  Doubtless  for  a  performance  before  an 
infidel,  in  broad  daxiight,  these  epicene  artists  did  not  !L;i\e  the 
rein  to  their  passion,  as  otherwise  it  would  be  impossible  to  ex- 
plain the  mad  admiration  and  devotion  they  excite  amoni;"  their 

nati\e  |)atrons.  But  thev  would 
not  come  for  less  than  twenty 
roubles,  all  the  same,  and  the}- 
were  very  dear  at  the  mone}. 
.■\s  Mr.  Skrine  triil>-  remarks, 
the  hjH'opcan  ne\cr  feel>  more 
acutcl)  ilic  ^uh"  l)ct\\cen  h'.a^t 
and  W  c-^t  than  w  hen  he  wit- 
ne>ses  the  entliii.^ia^-m  exciu-f]  1)\- 
the  mimic  pa-Mun^  ui  >ucli  a 
scene.  M\  iilii^^ratK  mi  i^  a  plm- 
t<',L:ra|>h  I  i<M)]x  at  I  he  linie  *  =1 
an    rxIiTinrK-    pnnn'.ir   IhiU'lia.      T 


iia\r    aiwavs    hi'i'ii    i;rc;ii:\    inirr- 

('■-U'< !  ni  will  1  \  I'  i  Ia!U"c>,  and  *  ill  rn 

louml   ilu,in   wiKiV   t/arcful  studv, 

but  Bokhara  coninlnued  little  to 

my  notes  on  this  subject — not  to 

be  compared  for  a  moment  to  the  charming  dancing  of  Japan, 

or  thai    in-"  1    wonderful  and  elo(|uent  dance    I    witnessed  and 

photogiaiilind  in   Si<  in.  the  capital  of  Korea.* 


A  '^B;itch:i"  <  >f  B..k!iar, 


1. 


Kv 


er\    I'l'-i H-niahic  wiMnai 


i    i  i' 


'oes  of  cour>c  xeiled 


antl  her  veil  i^  ni  hnr^-cliai!-  ihu-]\  and  !imil:  cn«>nL:"]i  totalh'  to 
obliterate  her  perMinalil}.  Xnilniig  l»ut  the  htile  |M.nitcd  tue  of 
a  .^carlet  or  green  IwiOt.  or  a  nindjda^tered  ^hapele-N  cxt remit v, 
betraxs  the  presence  behind  the  \eil  (^i  a  woman  whose  look^ 
still  jtistify  cocjtietry,  or  of  a  poor  old  labouring  hag.  The 
unveiled  ladies  have  a  street   to  themseUes,  where  thev   sit  on 

*  See  "The  Real  Japan,"  Chapter  IX..  and  "  The   People^  and  Politic^;  of  the  Far 
East."  p.  ;;54  s,/,/. 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     303 

their  balconies  in  velvet  robes  and  weighed  down  with  cheap 
metal  ornaments.  As  they  offer  the  only  opportunity  of  see- 
ing what  the  women  of  this  country  look  like,  I  took  advan- 
tage once  of  having  a  Cossack  with  me  to  get  him  to  gather 
a  mtle  group  of  them  together  to  be  photographed  —  with 
'the    result   vou    see.      They    thought   it    great   fun,    and   were 


The  Unveiled  Ladies  of  Bokham. 


„,„le  vcTN    iian.v  u.Hi  a  rouble  or  two  and  some  handfuls  of 


cigarettes. 


Bokhara  i>  the  focus  of  Mahommedanism  itt  Cotitral  A>.a. 
since  it<  teaching  here  is  free  of  all  Christian  interference.  1  hcrc- 
f,„-e  the  uuulrassas.  or  theological  colleges,  are  still  the  homes  ot 
devotion  and  fanaticism,  and  enjoy  all  their  ongmal  prestige. 
Therefore  also,  a  Christian  cannot  e.iter  them.  I:'.ut  their  ongmal 
architectural  beauty  has  vanished,  for  the  two  chief  ones,  which 


'  .Vitt^*%  ^Iw^-  "^  *^-  ■'*  ■Sf**'*  <»*'»^'  -IJ'.*    .*V;i»    ^    «.    '•    ♦    *'^.'*" 


..A, . .  ^ 


304 


ALL    IHI-,    KUSSLAS 


;X 


h 


Pi 


face  each  other  iti  the  iniddK'  nt  the  town,  were  once  cn\-crerl 
with  exciuisite  hhie  tiles  and  arc  now  nieanl_\-  repaired  wuh  i^rcai 
patches  of  mortar.  At  one  nin-(|ue  in  l)okhara  two  thon^and 
\\()rship])er>  can  pra\'  at  once.  Another  har-  a  facade  entire!}' 
formed  of  dehcatel}'  car\  ed  wooth  now  ui  that  licantifnl  L^rex  ne^a 
which  nntonchcd  wood  take-  on  with  ai;e.  In  front  of  it  there 
is  a  (piiet  spot  where  wiho\\>  and  huadies  (h'oop  ox'er  a  trickhni:;" 
fountain,  and  here  an  old  man  in  a  hri^ht  }ellow  kluilai,  seated 
upon  a  low  scpiare  stool,  was  reading-  alotid  ancient  Asian  hi-tor}' 
to  scattered  groups  of  deeply  attentive  listeners,  hh'om  time  to 
time  one  of  them  would  rise,  walk  hy  the  reader  an.d  droj)  a  coin 
for  liim.  and  silently  disa|)pear,  while  others  would  as  silently  join 
the  circle.  I  stood  a  loni;-  time  watching-  tliis  scene,  held  1)\-  its 
charm,  the  luonotoiious  voice  of  the  reader,  and  the  remoteness 
of  it  all  from  one's  own  world.  The  genuine  untouched  luast, 
exacth'  the  same  to-da\'  as  it  \\a>  a  thousand  \ear.^  aiio,  is  rare 
now. 

I  had  not  been  in  the  city  an  hour,  on  my  first  visit,  before 
there  was  a  coiumotion  in  the  crowd  and  a  huge  old  j^entleman 
in  a  l)rilliant  striped  kJialaf,  mounted  on  a  fine  horse  and  followed 
by  several  attendants,  came  pusliini;  his  way  through  the  crowd, 
careless  of  whom  he  trod  upon  or  knocked  aside.  It  was  evident 
from  the  demeanour  of  the  people  that  he  inspired  respect  if  not 
fear,  so  when  he  reined  up  sharpl\  1)\'  me  and  began  to  address  me 
volubly,  I  was  prej)ared  for  some  sort  of  a  scene.  It  turned  out 
that  he  was  the  chief  of  police,  and  that  he  had  been  despatched 
by  the  Kliiiz  Bci^i.  the  ruler  of  the  city  in  the  .\mir's  absence,  to 
fi'nd  the  foreigner  reported  to  be  in  the  bazaar,  and  recpiest  him 
to  present  himself  at  once  at  the  ])alace.  I  have  had  so  many  of 
these  dreary  receptions,  and  my  time  was  l)eing  so  much  luore 
interestingly  occupied,  that  1  made  e\  er\'  excuse  I  could  think  of. 
I  was  not  fittingly  dressed  to  wait  upon  h\<  mightiness,  my  time 
was  very  short,  I  Ijegged  the  policeman  to  present  my  respects 
and  excuses,  and  so  on.     P>nt  it   was  r)f  no  use.  and  the  worthv 


\' u t'^ V fe»> ^*-  '»•  *'  -*  a*'*-"*  •^•^■'•^  •  ■  '  ^-^  »■«»■» 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     305 

man  became  so  insistent  that  I  saw  it  would  be  discreet  to  comply 
without  further  delay. 

The  nondescri|)t  *'  palace  "  to  which  we  made  our  way  may  be 
better  iudired  from  mv  illustration  than  described.     It  is  the  old 
"Ark."  l)uilt   in    1742,  and  the  clock  between   its  towers   was 
the   ransom   an    Italian   prisoner   gave  for  his  life.      The   slope 
leading  to  it  was  lined  with  soldiery,  wearing  black  astrachan 
hats,  black  tunics,  scarlet  trousers  and  high  boots,  and  groups 
of   of^cials   eyed    us    curiously    and    without   any    obvious    ap- 
proval.    The  actual  entrance  l)ehind  the  towers  is  up  a  narrow 
sloping  passage,  evidently  made  to  admit  a  horse,  with  queer  dark 
celldike  rooms  off  it  at  intervals— the  sleeping  quarters  of  the 
soldiers,  and  perhaps  places  of  detention  also.     At  last  we  were 
ushered   into   an   ante-chamber,   l)eyond   wdiich   was   a   kind    of 
banciueting-room,  and  in  the  former  we  were  immediately  joined 
by  that  redoubtable  personage,  the  Chief  of  the  Falconers  him- 
self.    He  was  a  short,  enormously  fat  man,  with  a  patriarchal 
white  beard,  a  colossal  white  turban,  and  a  splendid  kJialat  of 
flowered  white  silk.    A  native  interpreter,  speaking  Russian,  ac- 
comi)anied  him,  so  our  conversation  was  done  at  two  removes, 
through  my  own  interpreter.     He  greeted  me  with  a  string  of 
profuse  and  variegated  com])liments,  and  begged  me  to  partake 
of  refreshments.     As  soon  as  we  entered  the  adjoining  chamber 
I  saw  that  I  should  be  lucky  if  I  escaped  in  a  couple  of  hours,  for 
a  most  elaborate  and  picturesque  dastarkhaiL  or  spread  of  sweet- 
meats of  everv  kind,  was  on  the  table,  too  obviously  the  prelude  to 
a  corresponding  feast.     And  so  it  proved,  the  troop  of  servants 
swept   away  course  aher  course,  the  well-known  sJiaslilik,   the 
shurpa,  l)oile(l  mutton  with  rice,  the  karardik,  ragout  of  mutton 
and  onions,  the  kchah,  grilled  knobs  of  mutton,  and  the  profusion 
of  fruit  and  sugary  cakes:  while  finding  that  I  did  not  drink  the 
sweet   champagne  very  fast   out    of  one  glass   they  tried   the 
hospitable  but  inetTective  expedient  of  filHng  several  glasses  with 
it  and  placing  them  temptingly  within  reach  of  my  hand. 


'  'I 


w 


306 


ALL     lilL    RL^^LVS 


Tlic  coiu'crsatitMi  was  of  a  similar  siii:-:ir_\-  cli::r:ictcr.  T  a-kcl 
alter  1]I^  lligliiie:-^  Sa\ni  AImiui  Ahau,  an*!  u  lie  was  soon  coming 
to  Bokhara.  I  wa^  informed  th.-it  lie  was  vev}^  l^nsy  Imt  iliat  lie 
would  soon  come  to  C()n«luct  affairs  of  >late.  I  he  kini,::  Hc;^! 
hoped  "  m\-  (Jueen  "  was  in  good  health,  and  that  the  war  ni 
which  she  was  engaged  was  |)rogressing  well.  I  \\a<  ihankfnl 
to  sav  the  Oueen  was  well,  and  I  honed  the  war  wotild  soon  ha\-e 
a  victorious  issue.  War,  remarked  my  host,  was  a  terril)le  thing. 
1  agreed,  and  asked  how  trade  in  Bokhara  was.  Thanks  to  the 
wisdom  and  kindness  of  the  Russians  in  bringing  the  railway, 
it  was  excellent  (O  hypocrite!).  1  begged  that  my  respectful 
greetings  might  be  conveyed  to  the  Amir,  with  an  expression  of 
my  profound  regret  that  I  had  not  been  able  to  ])resent  my  com- 
pliments in  person.  A  s]x^cial  courier  should  instantly  be  de- 
s|)atched  to  his  Plighness.  1  was  asstu'cd.  to  carry  my  message, 
dhis,  I  afterwards  heard,  was  acttiallx  done,  not  of  cotu'se  for 
anxthing  of  the  sort,  but  doubtless  to  tell  Inm  tliat  a  foreigner 
had  arrived,  that  he  had  been  stnnmoned  to  the  j^alace  and  enter- 
tained with  food  and  fair  words,  and  ascertained  to  be  a  harmless 
Englishman,  wdio  had  dtdy  paid  homage  to  the  great  Annr.  .\t 
every  compliment,  or  whene\'er  our  e\es  met.  the  Kliurj  Hci^i 
rose.  i)asse(d  hi^  hajid  >]owl\'  d<'\\n  luA  beard  (the  ci  niventi*  uial 
salaam,  refusal  to  perform  which  cr»>t  poor  Stoddart  his  life), 
and  l)Owed  })rofoundl}',  1  of  course  doing  the  >ame.  ddie  scene 
would  ha\-e  been  a  great  success  on  the  stage.  I  think — at  least  I 
had  to  adjure  my  Russian  companion  not  to  latigh.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  was  rather  a  shocking  farce,  for  he  regarded  me  as  an 
accursed  Christian  dog,  thrusting  my  nose  into  places  where  I 
had  no  business,  and  was  doubtless  reflecting  that  but  for  those 
other  accursed  Russians  he  would  promptly  have  dropped  me 
among  the  sheep-ticks,  preparatory  to  letting  my  blood  run 
down  the  gutters  of  the  bazaar;  while  I  certainly  regarded 
him  as  an  old  monster,  given  tip  to  the  beastliest  vices,  and 
crafty   and    cruel    and    rapacious    beyond   words.      We    parted 


I 


I 


OLD    BOKHARA    AM)    LFS    HORRORS     307 

with  an  ontburst  of  compliments  and  affecti<mate  assurances 
wliicli  (k-cciWMJ  nciihvr  ci  us.  This  is  one  aspect  of  Eastern 
trawl.  It  there  were  nnich  of  it,  and  nuthin.g  else,  few- 
people  would  go  to  the  East  except  for  trade  or  sword  ni 
hand. 

As  we  were  conducted  down  the  passage  T  noticed  haneins: 
near  the  entrance  a  great  club  and  an  enormous  whip.  The  for- 
mer is  said  to  have  come  from  ]\lecca,  and  the  latter  to  be  the 
whip  of  the  immortal  Rustum  himself.     Outside,  a  crowd  had 


The  Street  Grimacer  of  Bokhara. 

gathered,  and  an  official  made  a  way  for  me  with  his  stick.  In  the 
middle  a  tall  native  was  holding  forth  at  a  great  rate  about  a 
young  fellow  in  a  blue  tunic,  who  illustrated  the  different  phases 
of  the  i^atter  with  an  appalling  grimace,  greeted  by  the  spectators 
with  shouts  of  delighted  laughter.  Never  have  I  seen  such  a 
countenance  on  a  human  being.  The  fellow's  mouth  seemed 
made  of  india-rubber,  and  inserting  a  finger  of  each  hand  into  the 
corners  he  pulled  and  stretched  it  and  apparently  wound  it  round 
his  ears  and  opened  it  till  you  could  have  inserted  a  good-sized 
melon.    It  was  a  quaint  scene,  as  my  photograph  show^s,  proving 


3o8 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


k 


I  f 

! 


that  the  natural  man  finds  pleasure  in  unnatural  things,  alike  in 

Central  Asia  and  on  Epsom  Downs. 

High  above  everything  else  in  Bokhara  towers  the  Minar 

Kalan,  the  great  tower  of  punishment.     It  is  built  of  flat  red 

bricks,    and     its     graceful 
})roportions  have  not  suf- 
fered at  all  from  the  effects 
of    time.     At   the   top,    as 
will  be  seen,  it  widens  into 
a   kinil   of    campanile,    set 
with  oblong  windows,  and 
at   its  foot  there  is  a   de- 
pression which  looks  as  if 
it    had    been    scraped    out 
of  the  ground.     From  one 
of    these     windows     con- 
demned criminals,  trussed 
like    fowls,    were    pushed 
out.    and    this    de|)ression 
i>    wliere    general  i  oris    of 
tlu'iii  icil.     i  >iie  <ti  the  la-t 
Kuri  )])eaii-   1<  >  w  itnc-^  the 
h>  >rrid     sight     br!«  iix-     t lie 
RusbiaiiS    stoppled    11    I'jv 
vvi'v  was  M.  Moser,  the 
well-known   French  trav- 
t'ller  in  Central  Asia,  who 
spent  some  time  in  Bok- 
liara,  but  almost  as  a  pris- 
oner in  his  house,  for  he 


The  T'uvvoi   ol  l:xvV"utiv'ri.;>,  Bokhara. 


cuURi  nul  l;u 


ab*juL  iliL  cii}  wiiliout  an  escort.     Speaking  of  dull 

(lavs  thus  spent  hi'  writes:    '' Comme  distrnctir>ii,  je  voyais,  les 

jour-  de  bazar,  dr-  patluet^.  jcIl;-  du  haut  dii  Maiiarkalan,  tour- 
no  \-er  dai 


Tail'. 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     309 

The  prison  of  Bokhara  possesses  an  irresistible  fascination 
for  anybody  who  knows  the  history  of  Central  Asia,  and  I  fear 
I  looked  forward  to  visiting  this  more  than  any  other  place  there. 
It  was  the  scene  of  three  of  the  most  horrible  and  lonely  martyr- 
doms that  Englishmen  have  ever  been  called  upon  to  suffer  in 
the  cause  of  Empire.  The  story  is  forgotten  now,  but  cannot 
be  separated  from  the  place. 

In   1840  Colonel  Stoddart,  of  the  Indian  army,  was  sent  by 
the  British  Government  on  a  mission  to  Bokhara,  to  make  cer- 
tam  political  arrangements  with  the  Amir  Xasrullah.     He  was 
discourteously  received,  and  appears  to  have  acted  with  indis- 
cretion.     When   he  was   recpiested   to  make   the  usual   salaam 
before  the  Ann"r,  he  drew  his  sword— a  gross  affront,  and  when 
a  message  was  brought  to  him  from  the  Amir  he  is  said  to  liave 
replied    with    the    Oriental    insult,   "Eat   dung!"     At   any   rate 
he  was  un  the  worst   ternis  with  the  .Amir,  and  was  eventually 
thrruvii  into  prison.     Later  Cajnain  Arthur  Conolly,  also  of  the 
Indian  arnix ,  a  mail  of  sii],i:ii]<ar  l)caiit\-  (■■!   character  and  coii- 
spicnnns  piety,  was  despatelicd   by   ilic   Indian  Goveniinciit  to 
Kliokand  and  Khiva,  \\ith  orders  to  proceed  afterwards  to  Bok- 
hara, to  place  lllln^eiI  uiK'ir  ihr  orders  of  Stoddart  and  assist 
the  latter  in  any  w^ay  necessary.     He  duly  reached  Bokhara, 
and  shared  Stoddart's  treatment.     Then  darkness  fell  upon  the 
fate  of  the  tw'O  envoys.     The  last  authentic  new^s  of  them,  up 
to  September,  1843,  ^vas  contained  in  two  letters  from  Conolly 
to  his  brother  John,  himself  a  hostage  in  Kabul,  and  told  of 
their  situation  in  the  summer  of  1842: 

''For  four  months  they  had  no  change  of  raiment;  their 
dungeon  w^as  in  a  most  filthy  and  unwholesome  state,  and  teemed 
with  vermin  to  a  degree  that  rendered  life  a  burden.  Stoddart 
was  reduced  to  a  skeleton,  and  his  bodv  was  covered  with  nntrid 
sores.  They  had,  witii  great  difficulty,  pnxajled  ii|)on  one  of 
their  keepers  10  represent  tlirir  wrrtolied  cnKJitic^i  to  tiie  Kine. 
and  wiTe  then  awaiting  his  reply,  lia\ing  committed  themselves 


jy 


{ 


310 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 


to  God,  in  the  full  as>urance  lliat  unless  ^oon  released,  death 
must  shortly  terminate  their  sunerinus." 

The  British  and  Indian  government.- — to  tlieir  shame  be  it 
said,  unless  there  were  circtnn-t:uice>  one  (\()c>  uoi  know — took 
no  steps  to  discover  what  had  l)ecome  cf  their  envoys,  and. 
indeed,  placed  obstacles  in  tlie  way  of  se\eral  officers  who 
volunteered  to  risk  the  journey  to  Bokhara,  by  forbiddin.o^ 
them  to  wear  their  uniforms  and  refusing  them  official  cre- 
dentials. 

At  this  point  a  quaint  hero  stepped  forward,  in  the  per- 
son of  Josepli  Wolff,  l).l).,  LL.D.  This  worthy  man  had  al- 
ready lived  throui^h  experiences  strani^e  enough,  one  would  have 
thought,  to  satisfy  the  most  adventurotis.  liorn  a  Jew.  he  had 
become  a  Roman  Catholic,  turned  1  *r«  )te>tant,  ])n1)lic]y  protested 
against  the  Pope  in  Rome,  and  been  escorted  out  of  the  city 
bv  twenty-tive  gendarme-.  He  joined  the  Church  of  luigland, 
sttidied  at  Cambridge,  and  then,  with  two  ()])iects.  tlie  conver- 
sion of  his  fellow-Jew>  and  the  discovery  of  the  Ten  Lo-t  Tribes 
of  the  Dispersion,  he  had  ]M-eaclie(l  a  deliaiu  and  polemical  g(r-- 
pel  all  over  the  b-a-i.  challcngni-  the  K/anied  ever\-where  to 
dispute  with  him  in  nianv  longncs.  Aninii^-t  other  remote  anil 
(langerou>  lands  hi>  mi--inii;iry  /eal  lirid  carried  liin.i.  in  1830. 
even  to  Bokhara.  v\here  \\v  "  iinderwen!  inuoh  rigid  <jue-ti(^ning 
frniii  the  (ioo-h  lUTee" — a  fact  eiM,|ueni  enmigh  m  it-^ei!  of  the 
stuff  he  wa-  ina<le  of.  Then  he  settled  dnwn  as  curate  of  High 
TTovland,  in  \h)rk>hire;  but  iina'hle  to  pa--  neli  ^n  £00  a  \eaa".  he 
had  taken  his  w  n'e  and  -on  to  live  in  Ihaige-.  With  a  ceairage 
not  to  be  over-|)rai<ed  he  decided  to  make  the  j)eri]oiiv  atteni|)t 
to  rescue  the  two  officers,  the  xciinger  of  \\]ie)ni  he  knew  per- 
sonally and  greatl}'  esteemed,  or  at  lea.-t  to  place  tlieir  fate 
bevond  doubt,  and  in  Jul  v.  i8j^,,  he  inserted  a  letter  in  the 
Morning  Herald,  addressed  to  all  the  officer-  of  the  b>ritish  army, 
calling  for  companions  or  funds  to  help  him  in  the  enterprise. 
"  I  merely  want,"  he  wrote,  "  the  expenses  of  my  journey,  and 


OLD    BOKHARA    AND    ITS    HORRORS     311 

not  one  single  farthing  as  a  compensation,  even  in  case  of 
complete  success."  Tlie  money  was  found,  chiefly  by  a  Captain 
drover,  one  of  the  officers  to  whom,  as  narrated  above,  the 
government  had  refused  ofticial  countenance;  instructions  were 
given  to  all  British  representatives  on  his  route  to  afford  him 
help;  he  left  London  on  October  14,  1843;  reached  Bokhara 
after  many  adventures  and  in  spite  of  the  gravest  warnings  of 


^1 


The  Approach  to  the  Prison.  Bokhara. 

hh  certain  fate;  was  detained  tlare  a  |)n-oner  for  a  h)ng  time: 
relumed  t«i  embrace  Islam  and  finally  al:)andoned  all  hope  of 
esca])ing  the  executioner;  was  on!}'  allowed  to  go  at  la-l  in 
consecjuence  of  letters  demanding  his  release  being  sent  to  the 
Amir  by  the  Shah  of  Persia;  was  in  such  a  condition  when  he 
reached  English  friends  again  in  Persia  that  he  wrote:  "  For 
five  days  poor  Colonel  Williams  was  engaged  in  putting  the 


I  lei*    ! 


if 


1 


312 


ALL    THK    RUSSLAS 


vermin  off  my  body;"    and  arrived  back  in  London  on  April 

12,  1845-* 

His  journey  established  the  fact  that  the  two  men  he  sought 
to  rescue  had  been  murdered  three  months  l)efore  he  started, 
and  also  that  a  third  British  officer,  Lieutenant  \\'yl)urd,  had 
been  killed  by  the  Amir.  "  For  the  (juietude  of  soul  of  the 
friends  of  those  murdered  officers,  Colonel  Stoddart  and  Cap- 
tain Conolly,"  wrote 
Dr.  Wolff,  '•  I  have 
to  observe  that  they 
were  both  of  them 
cruelly  slau.^htered 
at  r)okhara,  after  suf- 
fering- agonies  from 
confinement  in  ])ris(^n 
of  the  nio:5t  fearful 
character— masses  of 
llicir  ile^h  ]ia\ii 
l)cen  gnawed  <it 
tlu-ir     1)(iiK'S    ])y    wr 


ail 


s 


nun 

fate    cf    iJu, 


c 


iinhappv 
erix't  >\'S  had  iiii U'cu 
l)een     a  I  ni  o  >=  t     tlie 


cnii'lle^t    C(  inccixal  ae. 


The  Prison  Gate  and  tlie   Gaoler.  B<ikhara. 


11ic\-  liad  \)vvu  kept 
1«aiL:'  in  pri^'Ui.  ^u])- 
ject  to  e\'er\-  prixatiun,  their  Impc^  heitpL;'  constant  1}'  rai-^c^l 
t)v  sliam  neo-otiations  whh  tlic  Amir,  and  several  time<  they 
had  been  led  in  execution  and  taken  1)ack  to  ]>ri^on.  ( )n 
one  of  these  occasions  the\-  had  been  otTered  their  h\-e^  it  they 
would    embrace    Islam,      ddie    }ounger    man    boldly    |)rotessed 

*  By  a  curious  slip  his  own  narrative  gives  the  tlate  of  his  start  wrongly  as  October. 
1844,  instead  of  184J. 


4 


\ 


i 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     313 

his  faith  in  the  eye  of  death,  but  in  a  moment  of  weak- 
ness, for  which  he  needs  no  forgiveness,  the  elder  aposta- 
tised. That  they  were  confined  in  a  dungeon-pit  infested 
with  sheep-ticks — the  reader  who  has  ever  seen  a  sheep-tick  may 
supply  the  adjectives — seems  certain,  though  it  may  be  a  fable 
that  these  insects  were  fed  with  meat  in  readiness  for  the  human 
prey  supplied  to  them  from  time  to  time.  At  last  they  were 
taken  out  and  their  heads  cut  off  in  public,  but  not  before 
Stoddart  had  denounced  Islam  and  declared  that  he  died,  as  he 
had  lived,  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers.  Of  Conolly's  end  Dr. 
Wolff  finely  wrote:  ''His  firm  conduct  at  his  dying  hour  re- 
minds us  forcibly  of  the  bearing  of  those  brave  soldiers  who 
died  in  the  persecutions  of  Decius  and  Diocletian.  I  hope  to 
see  my  Conolly  among  them  at  the  hour  of  Christ's  coming 

in  glory." 

.\s  the  P,ritish  Government  had  done  nothing  to  save  its 
emissaries,  so  it  did  nothing  to  punish  their  murderer.  But  the 
Reverend  Joseph  Wolff  was  not  without  justification  when  he 
said:  "I  have  given  such  proofs  to  my  Jewish  friends  of  my 
sincerity  of  belief,  as  1  may  say  whhout  boasting  no  otlier  Jew- 
i'^h  convert  has  yet  done.  Independent  of  this,  my  nation  saw 
that  the  Jew  was  prepared  to  risk  hi>  life  to  -nve  the  ficntile." 
ShaJoni  Icka !  * 

All  thi<  wa<  vividly  in  npv  memory  wlien  1  -et  ^- >iit  fi  .r  ilie 
old  jaaM.n  of  Bokhara.  The  palace,  or  as  it  shouM  rather  be 
termed,  the  citadel  or  fort,  stands  upon  a  l(^w  hill  <:\u\  u^  be 
artificial,    and    is    surrounded    by    a    higli    mud-wall.      Skirting 

Dr.  Wolf!  subsequently  became  vicar  of  We  Brewers,  in  Somer^ei,  an<l  remained 


s   me 


there  till  his  death.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Cole,  the  present  vicar,  courteously  inform 
that  he  is  buried  in  the  church-yard  under  a  marble  cross  with  this  most  modest  m- 
scription  :  "Joseph  Wolff,  Vicar  of  Isle  Brewers.  Born  X<n-.  9th.  I7Q?.  ^^^^  May 
2nd  1862.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  his  only  hope  of  Salvation."  It  is  equally  re- 
markable and  regrettable  that  his  monument  bears  no  allusion  to  his  life  of  missionary 
zeal,  or  to  the  act  of  Christian  heroism  which  was  its  climax. 


(C  T  ♦ 


w   \ 


3H 


ALL   TIIK    RUSSIAS 


this,  one  comes  at  its  eastern  side  to  the  foot  of  a  mound, 
upon  which  there  is  a  walled  enclosure  reached  by  a  winding 
road  and  entered  throu^^h  a  massive  gate-way  of  brick,  now- 
dilapidated.  This  is  the  ZiiK.cni,  or  state  prison,  and  it  faces 
the  wall  of  the  citadel,  ddie  gaoler  came  out  to  meet  me  and 
I  shivered  at  the  thought  of  those  at  his  mercy,  lie  was  an 
old  man,  very  fat,  with  a  long  white  beard,  dressed  all  in  white, 
and  his  cruel,  leering  face  was  an  epitome  of  the  vices.  Expec- 
tation of  a  present  made  him  obsefjuious.  but  from  his  wicked 


Tlk'  Dour  nf  the  GrcAi  I'rismi. 

grin  it  was  easy  to  guess  that  he  would  have  l)een  ])et!er  j)]eased 
to  receive  me  under  (juitc  different  circumstance^.  lM)r  tweiitv- 
seven  years,  he  said,  he  had  l)een  in  charge  of  the  prison.  The 
square  door-wav  admits  to  a  kind  of  vanhed  guard-room,  in 
which  soldiers  and  a  few  ugly  natives  were  sitting  and  lounging. 
On  the  walls  were  plastered  pieces  of  pai)cr  on  which  texts  from 
the  Koran  were  roughly  engrossed,  and  below  them  hung  a 
fine  collection  of  chains  and  handcuffs.  Beyond  the  guard-room 
was  a  small  yard,  and  tw(o  sides  of  it  were  formed  by  the  fronts 
of  the  two  separate  prisons — one  of  brick,  and  comparatively 


I 


I 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     315 

new,  the  other  of  mud,  low  and  old,  below  the  level  of  the  yard, 
its  thick  doors  of  worm-eaten  wood  fastened  at  the  top  by  an 
antedilnvian  i)a(llock.  The  door  of  the  new  prison  was  opened 
and  I  entered  alone.  It  was  a  good-sized  chamber,  lighted  by 
little  barred  windows  near  the  roof,  its  floor  covered  with  men. 
A  row  of  them  sat  round  the  wall,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
they  were  chained  there,  while  others  had  spread  their  miserable 
quilts  so  as  to  fill  every  inch  of  space,  and  sat  and  lay  in  all  sorts 
of  attitudes  to  get  relief  for  their  liml)s  without  touching  their 
neighbours.  The  moment  they  realised  that  a  foreigner  had 
come,  thev  broke  ont  into  all  sorts  of  petitions,  a  dozen  talking 
at  once.  Doubtless  they  took  me  for  a  Russian  official,  who- 
could  have  interfered  on  their  behalf.  One  poor  wretch  ran 
across  and  fell  on  his  knees,  seizing  me  by  the  leg  and  reiterat- 
ing in  all  the  Russian  he  knew  that  he  was  a  Samarkand  man, 
and  therefore  a  Russian  subject — "  Ya  Samarkand  chclorick! 
Ya  Samarkand  cJicIorick!  "  It  was  a  shocking  sight,  and  I  con- 
fess I  approached  the  door  of  the  old  prison  with  misgiving.  A 
soldier  undid  the  padlock  and  stood  aside  for  me  to  enter.  I 
took  one  step  and  then  stopped. 

The  room  was  almost  dark,  two  deep  steps  led  down  into 
it,  it  was  crowded  with  men  like  Ijeasts  in  a  pen,  a  stithng  reek 
issued,  and  heavy  chains  rattled  as  those  wearing  them  turned 
to  see  who  was  entering.  For  a  moment  1  hesitated,  then  a 
thin  broken  voice  said  half  reproachfully,  in  Russian:  ''  Please 
cQji^e  in — please!"  and  I  stepped  down  into  the  inferno.  The 
spectacle  was  such  as  one  does  not  easily  forget.  The  room 
was  smaller  than  the  other,  and  without  any  opening  to  the 
outer  air  except  the  door,  and  it  was  even  more  crowded.  As 
my  eyes  grew  accustomed  to  the  light  I  saw  that  most  of  the 
inmates  were  chained,  and  others  were  evidently  only  free  for 
the  day,  for  behind  them  were  the  rings  in  the  wall  to  which 
they  were  chained  at  night.  Chains  on  the  hands,  chains  on 
the  feet,  even  chains  round  the  necks,  and  some  of  them  with 


'»*» 


ill 


,  I 


If 


.  I 


316 


ALL    THE    RUSSL-IS 


a  big  iron  collar  and  chained  bv  it  to  the  wall.  Poor,  pale  hat^. 
gard  wretches— utterly  ignorant  of  what  might  happen  to  them, 
never  knowing  when  the  door  opened  that  it  was  not  the  execu- 
tioner come  to  take  them  to  the  l)azaar.  Among  them  were 
men  evidently  well-to-do,  for  they  were  dressed  in  clothes  that 
had  once  been  good,  and  their  mats  had  once  l)een  the  clean 
beds  of  prosperous  men.  They  were  almost  beyond  hope;  few 
spoke  to  me  except  to  beg  for  bread  and  water;  several  took 
no  notice  of  me  whatever,  but  the  moment  the  door  had  opened 


Tile  liniror  ul   il.  .ir'.i>,  B- ikiuia. 

and  let  in  a  little  light  they  had  |. tilled  cnpie.  ni  the  Koran  out 
of  their  dress  and  were  readinp^  it  fa.M  as  jono  a-  the  light  lasted. 
One  man  seemed  to  take  a  sardonic  satisfaction  in  mv  evident 
horror,  for  he  made  a  way  for  me  across  the  floor  and  invited 
me  by  gestures  to  enter  a  second  chandler,  throuoh  a  low  door- 
way in  the  wall.  I  remembered  that  the  vermin-pit  was  said 
to  have  been  within  a  second  chamber  in  the  old  prison,  so  I 
overcame  my  repugnance  and  entered.  The  inner  room  was 
like  the  outer,   but  its  human   imnatcs   were  in   even   a  worse 


OLD    BOKHARA   AND    ITS    HORRORS     317 

state,  and  it  is  needless  to  dwell  more  on  filth  and  horror.  The 
earthen  fioor  sank  in  the  middle — the  pit  that  was  here  has 
been  filled  up. 

This,  then,  was  probably  the  scene  of  the  long  agony  of 
Stoddart  and  the  gentle  Conolly.  Within  these  very  walls  the 
two  Englishmen,  thinking  on  the  spotlessness  and  the  honour 
of  home,  on  their  comrades  and  friends,  on  the  women  who 
loved  them  and  were  breaking  their  hearts  for  them — or  were 
finding  consolation,  if  time  had  tried  troth  too  high — on  the  gov- 
ernment that  had  sent  them  and  had  apparently  washed  its  hands 
of  them,  starved  with  hunger,  sickened  with  dirt,  gnawed  alive  by 
burrowing  vermin,  had  prayed  first  for  life  and  then  at  last  for 
death.  But  even  this  poignant  memory  could  not  displace  the 
present  horror.  There  is  this  truth  in  the  Roman  playwright's 
immortal  remark,  that  the  degradation  of  one  human  being, 
whether  infiicted  or  self-procured,  degrades  humanity.  I  was 
haunted  for  weeks  by  the  face  of  a  man  I  once  saw  in  prison 
who  had  just  been  flogged,  and  to  me,  who  hate  to  see  a  lark 
in  a  cage  or  a  monkey  tied  to  an  organ,  the  sight  of  all  these 
men,  with  hopes  and  fears  and  aftections  like  my  own  in  kind, 
positively  cliained  in  rows,  robbed  of  every  vestige  of  human 
riehts,  was  awful.  All  I  could  do  was  to  buv  l)read  for  them 
all,  and  -land  l)\-  till  1  -aw  they  reallv  had  it.  and  di-tril)Ute  :-ome 
handtuls  of  small  com,  in  the  hope  tliat  it  would  aUord  a  grain 
of  alleviation  of  their  lot.  How  long  had  most  of  thern  been 
there?  I  asked  the  old  gaoler.  Some  just  come  in — some  for 
years.  Had  they  all  been  tried?  Some  had — some  had  not. 
What  were  they  chiefly  condemned  to?  Some  to  stay  in  prison 
— some  to  oeath.  Would  some  of  them  be  freed?  The  old  man 
smiled.  I  knew  what  he  meant— it  depended  upon  whether 
thev,  or  their  relatives,  could  find  money  to  bribe  others  and 
him.  When  would  the  condemned  ones  be  executed?  God 
alone  knew. 

If  the  round  earth  has  a  spot  upon  which  hope  can  find  no 


«>-    «     #•«  .>W   A..^  -"%    %> 


I 


318 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^S 


foothold,  that  spot  would  seem  to  be  the  prison  of  Old  Bok- 
hara. Yet  as  I  looked  back  I  saw  that  a  gipsy  woman  had 
followed  me  in,  and  that — the  soldier  at  the  gaol-door  being 
too  interested  to  shut  it — a  group  of  eager  prisoners  had  gath- 
ered round  the  step,  and  she  was  telling  their  fortunes  for  the 
coppers  I  had  given  them. 


CHAPTER    XXI 
SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 

AFTER  Athens,  Rome,  and  Constantinople,  I  should  rank 
Samarkand  as  the  most  interesting  city  in  the  world.  A 
volume  might  be  filled  with  descriptions  of  all  its  sights,  but 
fortunately  my  photographs,  which  I  venture  to  think  are  of 
unusual  interest,  tell  the  greater  part  of  what  one  would  wish  to 
say.  It  lies  2,000  feet  above  the  sea,  and  is  a  desert  of  narrow 
streets  and  silent,  mud-coloured  houses,  surrounded  by  an  earthly 
paradise  of  fertile  fields,  rich  vineyards,  and  blossoming  gardens, 
recalling  at  once  a  certain  clever  imitation  of  Omar  Khayyam — 

What  though  the  Book  you  cannot  understand  ? 
Drink  while  the  Cup  stands  ready  to  your  hand ; 

Drink,  and  declare  the  summer  roses  blow 
As  red  m  London  as  in  Samarkand. 

In  its  midst  is  the  inevitable  bazaar,  crowded  from  morning  till 
night  by  dense  crowds  of  haggling  purchasers  and  gossipers, 
through  which  a  ceaseless  stream  of  men  and  w^omen  on  horses, 
donkeys,  and  camels  push  their  way  w^ith  the  greatest  difficulty. 
As  in  Bokhara,  one  section  is  devoted  to  cloth,  another  to  silk, 
another  to  leather,  another  to  arms,  another  to  metal-w^ork,  and 
the  most  interesting  of  all  to  manuscripts.  Here  I  w-as  brought 
all  sorts  of  strange  volumes  to  buy,  and  although  this  market 
had  been  ransacked  of  late  for  rare  treatises  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing that  only  my  ignorance  of  their  contents  prevented  me  se- 
curing some  manuscript  of  value.  But  probably  my  ignorance 
also  preserved  me  from  less  pleasant  discoveries,  for  much  of  the 

319 


•*.  i«    »^  „ 


320 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


I 

I' 


r- 1 


!• 


If    t 


I* 

i»    i 


reading  matter  that  delights  the  East  would  produce  a  very  dif- 
ferent impression  upon  a  western  mind. 

It  is  the  marvellous  ruins  of  Samarkand,  however,  that  give 
the  city  its  extraordinary  interest.  Alexander  the  Great  paused 
here;  long  afterward  China  made  it  into  a  great  capital;  then 
Mohammedanism,  destined  to  conquer  from  China  to  Ttu-kev, 
converted  it  into  the  best  loved  and  most  admired  spot  of  the 
world.  Genghiz  Khan  destroyed  it  with  tire  and  sword  in  12  19, 
and  more  than  a  ceiUury  later  Timur,  the  lame  Tartar — Tijiiur 
Loi^,  whence  our  "Tamerlane" — anticipated  the  heaiitv  and 
the  fame  of  Athens  here,  and  adorned  it  with  the  '*  grandest 
monuments  of  Islam,"  whose  ruins  to-day.  six  centuries  later. 
are  worth  the  long  journey  to  the  heart  of  Asia  to  see.  They 
surround  the  Rigistan,  or  market -|)iace,  and  consist  of  se\-eral 
}U(iiI)\isSi!s,  or  colleges.  Tnimr's  tomli.  In^  wife's  inaii-oleum, 
and  one  Wi>nderfui  nioscnie.     The  ;;h,/./rj.vMi  called  Shir  /a/r,  nr 


the  f  J'  aidicarii 


TL 


troiii  tiii; 


I 


..a  >a  ana  t  lie  >uu  « ^i 


•  K'  t  ta  I  a !  ]  i  - 
:,tre,  a::d 
i  I liaU' 1  <■'■ 


air  splendour, 


elied  iif^ai  11.  siaraJ-  or>  tlic  laistern  side  of  U'^  1:::^ 
that  kiiuwii  ai  I  ila  Kan,  or  ilie  Goldeti,  froiii  tii 
with,  whicli  it  was  once  covered,  on  the  north.  1  >  t 
as  shown  Hi  rn\  iihiM rations,  niiist  be  added  the  clicci  of  colour, 
for  their  tarade-  aia;  Inuli  of  coloured  tile-,  amnnrr  wTich  the  un- 
e(jiiaHe<!  l»!iie  <>f  Per-i:i  |a"edominates.  These  fa(;ades  are  flariked 
wall]  rniiKiret-  tU  exireme  grace  btit  ctiriouslv  out  i-i  the  per- 
pendicular, w^hiie  wahin,  the  courtyard  is  surrounded  \Mth  two 
storeys  of  class-rooms  and  students'  apartments.  Foreigners  are 
not  welcomed  here,  but  I  managed  to  make  friends  with  the  pro- 
fessors of  one  of  these  colleges,  and  after  a  theological  discus- 
sion of  the  prohibition  in  the  Koran  of  making  pictures  of  the 
faithful,  to  take  tin-  {shotograph  of  a  group  of  them. 

A  voiiiio-  >tiah.ait  of  the  miuh'assa,  with  the  (  )r!cntars  eye  for 
!)akshish,  vohnnecaaMl  to  take  nie  ai)  to  the  roof,  an.-.l  tlie  \-iew  of 
the  cH\-,  coirihaned  watli  the  riH-Maecih^i  ..a  its  iaar\a:lli!n-  jvist, 
held  me  lon<a-  entranced.      Heitax'  wa-  tlie  crow. led,  n<iis\',  main'- 


■< 
:iL. 

< 


(i 


Li^A.    ■■„  -Tl--'  ' 


SAMARKAND    AN!)    BI^OND 


3n 


<f! 


cnioiircfl  iiiarki't-i'iaci'.  enclosed  bv  t 


I  { * 

I I 


real  ])iiil(liiiL:"s.  still  i 


n  ;!<"'• 


i  i  ti 


b- 


II 


iilcciil   in   their  |)anial  rum — -ilie  nnhlest   |)nl)lic  scjiiare  in  ilie 


wuritl,    m 


J  ii  ( 


L  iirzon's  opinio 


n.     Beyond  them  the  gkirions 


I 


ij- 


:\ 


<\\\#« 


yM 


A  '^.irt  ■  f  S;imarkand. 


dome 


di  tile   maiis( ileum ^  o 


f  T 


imiu'.  ilie  man  who  built   them 


all,  and  his  wife,  stood  ]ii_<;ii  above  ever}  thiuL:-  else.  Time  and 
earthcjuakes  liave  \vrou,qiit  destruction,  tlie  portals  are  liroken, 
some  of  the  minarets  are  withotit  tops,  square  yards  of  tiles  have 


jujgaMHLja  ■ 


•  - »   - ,  • 


,-•■,  "---ki-^j 


3-4 


ALL    THK    RUSSLAS 


[*t 


I 


f  r 


I 


I 


I  ' 


fallen  off,  rubbish  heaps  have  been  formed  of  the  debris,  but  still 
the  magnificenee  of  these  i^reat  structures  persists,  and  1  know 
no  more  impressive  and  picturescpie  sii;ht  than  this  i^rcat  market, 


The  Mucirassa  Shir  Dur,  Samiirkand. 

crowded  wiih  stalls  and  shoutinir  buyers  and  sellers,  while  high 
above  nn  1  ;  H  nronnd  the  human  ant-heap  stand  these  vast  archi- 
tictiirai    |.]rihi<  in  -  (if  an  age  long  past,  iliv  note  of  heavenly  blue 

dnminaliiiL'   all.       1  la:  ciU  ,  Hat 


an«  1  -«  arn  aa;. 


n  i  u  'v 


i  i    a  I  u  Li  I  i  u 


< 

< 
< 

'5 


-J 


< 

< 


I     i 


f  1 


I 

I 


>' 


b'- 


/i 


i^ 


SAMARKAND    AND    BKYOND 


3^7 


with  gardens  and  vineyards.     Around  these  was  the  bare,  sandy 
desert,  rolhnrr  up  into  the  Alai  range.    Behind  me  was  the  peace- 


Interior  of  Shir  Dar,  Samaricand. 

fill  courtyard,  surrounded  l)\   it-  tiers  of  cells  for  the  students, 

Vvith  trec=;.  and  fotintain^.  and  ^!.,)\v]\-  ster)pinLr.  \vI]iie~tiirl,Kiiied 


.*  -  •  ,  fc  ■■ 


*   t» 


P 


I 


il » 


1 1 


328 


AIJ.    lin.    Rl  -SNIAS 


}}io!hilis.  Once  tliis  wa^  t1ic  iiictrnTinii^  of  ilie  worM  r»f  Islam, 
the  home  of  art  and  poetry,  the  >ile  ot  everything  mo-t  splenchd 
that  Alohammedairism  proihiccd,  tlie  place  of  every  Miissuhiian's 
desire,  the  svmlxd  of  beatitv  and  perfection,  llafiz  of  Shiraz  be- 
Heved  himseh*  to  he  totichnig-  the  hii;h water  mark  of  hxperbole 
when  he  wrote — 

If  that  Turkish  ^irl  of  Shiraz  would  give  me  her  heart. 

I  would  give  for  one  mole  of  her  cheek  Samarkand  and  Bokhara. 

But  the  Uzbeq;s  were  the  (ioths  and  \^andals  of  this  Asian  Rome 
— the  Turks  of  this  later  Athens.  Finally  even  Bokliara  took  it 
and  held  it  till  the  Rtissians  came  concpiering-  from  Tashkent. 
}Ia|)pily  Timur  built  his  monument-  s(^  snji.lly  tliat  neither  men 
n(»r  tune  haw  de-'trt  i\-ei|  ilicni.  and  t<i^da\'  lhe\-  are  a>>-ure<iiy 
sliil   anioiii^'  1!]!'   ui!i-i    i^inri<  n,]^   \\'t!rl■v^  oi  liiunaii   hands. 

Turnn-  Iniii-elf  reposes  beneath  an  exqui-Ur  tinted  dome, 
ilanket!  uniMnaih-  b\  iwu  liUiiarcti,  ui  winch  une  lla^  {anen  and 
tile  Miiicr  1-  cracked  and  leans  dangerously.  Tn  front  i=  an  en- 
trance portal  with  a  Gothic  arch,  in  blue  enamel,  leading  to  a 
garden  shaded  by  alders  and  mulberries  and  weeping  acacias. 
An  aged  mollah  lives  in  a  stone  cell  within  the  mausoleum,  sur- 
rounded by  paper  texts  copied  from  the  decorations  and  tombs, 
which  he  sells  to  the  faithful.  Beneath  the  lofty  dome,  on  the 
ground  level,  within  a  kind  of  palisade  of  pierced  alabaster  or 
gypsum,  are  half  a  dozen  coffin-shaped  slabs,  marking  the  places 
where  the  bodies  lie  in  the  crypt  below.  One  of  these  is  an 
enormous  block  of  dark-green  jade,  almost  black,  said  to  be  the 
largest  in  the  world,  bearing  the  name  of  the  Amir  Timur  him- 
self, an-!  the  date  *>i  his  death  ni  Mohanunedan  chronology — 
A.ic  1  105.  Another  block  is  commemorative  of  his  grandson, 
i;iu-li  IU-l:.  the  [anions  astronomer,    iii  a  rece--,  below  a  jaerced 

stone   wand^'U,   liani^--  a  Hai:',    '-tnanounted   hv  a  hor^C'^tail -the 

syndjul  of  tiglitnii;-  M<  iliarnniedani>ni.  When  \"ici  lia\e  i^azed 
upon  tlie-e  tlie  old  jnoJlaii  liLflU-  a  irntterini:  tai 


!  <  a  e 


itea !--  \'<  ai 


» 


\ 


\ 


SAMARKAND    AND    BlaYOND  329 

down  a  narrow  flight  of  marble  steps  to  the  crypt,  where  the 
nngiity  eoncjtieror  lies  beneath  a  single  stone — one  of  the  world's 


Portal  of  til;'  T  nib  of  Tamerlane,  Samarkand. 

erentest  dead,  whoic  armies  ranged  victorious  over  more  than 

e\'e!i  Rn.>-ia  rides  to-day. 

Nra  less  iinpressi\a'  than  hi-  r.wai  tonil).  and  probal)ly  more 

beautiful  Indore  it  fell  niio  hnj)cless  decay,  is  the  mausoleum  of 


-^ 


v%      •■■-'■. 


Y 


I  I 


•1  t 
i  * 


728 


ALL    IIIL    lU  S^L\.^ 


niiuliilis.  (  hioc  ilii^  \\a>  ilic  iiu'iru[juli^  ui  ilic  w'^rld  uf  Iblani. 
the  lionie  of  art  and  |)oetr\-,  tlic  >!te  of  evcr\  iliiiiL;  ni<wt  splendid 
that  Mohammedanism  jiroihiced,  the  place  (jl  every  Mu^^uhnar^s 
desire,  the  symlx)!  of  l)eaut y  and  perfection.  I  lafiz  of  Shiraz  he- 
he\-ed  himseh"  to  he  tonchm^i;-  the  hii^h  water  mark  uf  h\pcrhole 
wlien  he  wrote — 

If  that  Turkish  girl  of  Shiraz  wouici  i^ive  me  her  heart, 

I  would  give  for  (»ne  mole  of  iicr  cheek  Samarkand  and  Bokhara. 


Rut  the  Lzlieq-s  were  the  (Joths  and  X'andals  of  tins  A^ian  Rome 
—the  Idn'ks  of  tjii^  later  .\thens.  hdnall}-  exen  huikhara  took  it 
and  held  it  tdl  the  Rn^^iaii-  came  coiKnierini::  froni  Tashkent. 
hhif)|)il\-  d'inini"  huiit  hi-  ni.  cnimeiits  so  sohdh"  lliai  iieiiher  men 
nt'F  imie  ha\e  destroved  thein.  and  tu-dav  thev  are  a^<iiredlv 
still  anaiiio-  the  most  glorious  works  of  human  hands. 

1  nnur  hnn><  If  reposes  beneath  an  exquisite  fluted  dome, 
flanked  originally  by  two  minarets,  of  which  one  has  fallen  and 
the  other  is  cracked  and  leans  dangerously.  In  front  is  an  en- 
trance portal  with  a  Gothic  arch,  in  l)lue  enamel,  leading  to  a 
garden  shaded  by  alders  and  mulberries  and  weeping  acacias. 
An  aged  niollaJi  lives  in  a  stone  cell  within  the  mausoleum,  sur- 
rounded by  paper  texts  copied  from  the  decorations  and  tombs, 
which  he  sells  to  the  faithful.  Beneath  the  lofty  dome,  on  the 
ground  level,  wdthin  a  kind  of  palisade  of  pierced  alabaster  or 
gypsum,  are  half  a  dozen  coffin-shaped  slabs,  marking  the  places 
where  the  bodies  lie  in  the  crypt  below.  One  of  these  is  an 
enormous  block  of  dark-green  jade,  almost  black,  said  to  be  the 
largest  in  tlie  world,  bearing  the  name  of  the  Amir  Timur  him- 
self, and  the  date  of  h.is  death  in  Mohammedan  chronology — 
\  o.  1  }»!5.  Anuilier  block  is  commemorative  of  hib  grandson, 
l/hi^h  i'ei^  the  fatnon<  a-trMnomer.     In  a  recess,  below  a  pierced 

stone   winduw,   liani^'s  a   ikii^,    surmoimted    \>y   a   lit  H--t- tail ^-the 

symbol  of  tl^litin^i;^  MnhairnneCuanr-nr  When  von  ha\"e  uazed 
tipoii  the^e  the  old  iniuuiii  lights  a  giitlerniL;  candle  and  iead^^  vdu 


t 


I 


SAMARKAND    AM)    BlAONl) 


y 


down  a  narrow  flight  of  marble  steps  to  the  crypt,  where  the 
miglit}  conqueror  lies  beneath  a  single  stone — one  of  the  world's 


IP 

4 

i 

1 

1    >*va 

■■■■■■BMP^ 

in 

Portal  r,f  the  T  nib  of  Tamerlane,  Samarkand. 

greatot  dead,  wliose  armies  ranged  victorious  over  more  than 
e\-en  Rn---ia  rules  to-dav. 

Xot  less  itripressi\-e  than  his  own  totiil).  and  proljal)ly  more 
beautiful  before  it  fell  into  iKjpeless  decay,  is  the  mausolenm  of 


:Ui: 


»>•.!►■  ,.     «  »k,    •  .*      V* 


v%    •■'^  %  t 


.  N     f^  -«.,,,*,  , 


■J 


' 


i 


'I 


i#  <' 


va^:>^■i  ,.>.v.i. 


330 


ALL     lU!      KL  SSL\S 


Bibi  Khanum,  his  wife,  tlie  daui^hter  of  tlie  Emperor  of  China. 
One  traveller  speaks  of  it  a.>  "  !c  f^lus  beau  inoiuiniMil  qui  ait 
jcuiiais  etc  clcvc  a  la  fiianoirc  (I'luic   fcuiiuc  adanrr  and  if  one 


rmf 


.  /:'-ir-.t--';.*.. 


^ 


-<*i-«'^-<"» 

■.r^' 


'"1       3q 


^ifell 

Hilk 

/I  I  ^ 


■-liK 


^C^^- 


;:v.--- 


Ulli^    s 


Tamerlane,  SanrukuiJ. 


<H.I  not  renieniher  the  Tai   Ahihal  at  A-ra  one  nii-lit  accept  the 

enthusiastic  verdict.     1 1^  c«  .lossal  and  ^wevpII!-■  pmaal  i.  n^  av  hut 
a   mined   arch,    and   its   innirnillcent    tuid    iMWer 


nig   *i.;nie,  once 


^-.l^lLH 


.v^  V.  .iv*. 


*  •  ■   *•  >|        '  -V-    ■.«  V'  V  V*     <►%  ^   «,■      ••   f  ,,  .     «. 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 


o  "1  T 


goro-eous  in  red  and  o-reen  and  g-ohh  is  rent  across  and  must 
soon  falh  But  time  and  neglect  have  failed  to  make  any  impres- 
sion upon  one  thing — the  enormous  marble  lectern  in  the  court-' 
yard,  which  used,  it  is  said,  to  hold  a  Koran  of  corresponding 
proportions  read  by  Bibi  Khanum  herself  from  an  upper  window. 
Most  impressive  of  all  however,  to  mv  wav  of  thinkincr,  is  the 
mosque  of  the  Shah  Zindah.  or  "  laving  Saint."  a  martyred  saint 


The  Tomb  of  Tamerlane— Upper  Chamber. 

of  Islam,  who  is  to  arise  again  in  the  hour  of  the  triumph  of  his 
faith.  You  enter  it  through  a  blue  and  white  tiled  gateway,  and 
pass  by  a  marble  stair  between  a  double  row  of  tombs  of  Timur's 
relatives  and  generals.     To  the  left,  when  I  visited  it,  the  very 

sacred  !]]oH|iU'  wab  crciwded  witii  knocliiiL:-  w*  ii'-liippers.  all  bow- 
ing togethi  r  lilvv  a  wave  as  the  leading  uunlali  cli:nited  the  credo 
of  Ibknn.  If  I  caught  tlic  (kx^jv^rolling-  alliterative  syllables  ariglit, 
thev  were  tlic  sacred  word^  wiiicli  MulKumricdi  ^av;  in  letter-  nf 


o..-^      •^«^V»' 


jm: 


iK' 


33^ 


AJJ.     I  I II      R  I  SSI  AS 


Hrc  on  the  tiara  of  Cahrirl.  mikt  iliai   ^i;i\    iiic  pmfc^.son  m  the 

"'^'-^^  fanatical "(.od.  and   laalnn-   hni   (hmI.  an,l   M(  )liainmi'.] 

the  Pi-ophet  (.f  (io.l."  Then  thnai^h  a  Lui-  narn.xN'  e-MTnlor  tn 
the  entrance  of  tlie  inner  nios,jne.  on  the  threshold  ..f  which  a 
iiiolhi/i  was  (levoinly  prayni-.  wnh  Us  hn-e  n]scri])tion.  '■  ( ,o(l  is 
Great."  and  a  oreeii  text  from  Mecca,  a  carved  wooden  pulpit, 
and  an  enormous  Koran,  live  feet  scpiare.  Then  across  pachled 
carpets  to  the  inner  sanctuary,  where,  hehind  a  pierced  stone 
screen,  old  green  Mags  hang,  and  a  faint  candle  shows  the  deep 


SAMARKAND    AND    BKYOND 


3^3 


stoned)ui]t  hole  wliere  the  Sain!  awau^  ilic  jo\  nd  lU'w^  ui  ilie 
hnal  triumph  of  Islam,  r.e.-nk'  the  screen  i-  a  ]ica\  \  littU-  wooden 
dooi-.  leadino-  to  the  vault  hel.^w.  and  fastened  witli  a  nm.t  (luaint 
padlock.  "That  has  never  been  unlocked  since  the  Saint  en- 
tered the  earth,  twelve  hundred  and  tiftv-nine  vears  a-o."  said 
the  inoIlaJi  who  was  conductm-  int--^\vith  a  tine  disregard,  it 
must  he  confessed,  of  historical  accm-acv.  fnr  that  would  place 
the  (late  about  six  htmdred  years  before  the  birth  of  Tinnn-  him- 
self, who  built  the  mosqtie.     This  spot,  however,  does  not  need 


the  aid  of  pious  fiction,  and  through  these  narrow  ways  and 
gates  and  pra\er-chaml)ers  one  walked  in  silence,  for  e\-erv- 
where  worshippers  were  prostrating  themselves  in  deep  devo- 
tion, and  in  the  innermost  room  one  peered  down  into  the  deep 
and  blacl:  tomb  where  the  Saint  lies  until  that  dav,  feeline  that 
one  was  in  truth  in  a  place  sanctified  by  the  solemn  homage  of 
ages  of  devout  men. 

One  word  must  be  added  here  in  criticism  of  the  Russian 
authorities.  They  are  apparently  oblivious  of  the  sacred  re- 
sponsibility imposed  upon  them  by  the  possession  of  these  unique 
monuments  of  a  glorious  past.  Some  rough  repairs  of  common 
plaster  have  been  made  in  the  walls  and  dome  of  the  tomb  of 
Timur — and,  indeed,  it  would  be  a  crime  to  allow  so  memorable 
a  spot  to  fall  into  decay — but,  on  the  whole,  the  Russians  have 
done  almost  iiothing  to  keep  these  splendid  structures  intact. 
They  do  strictly  forbid  the  selling  of  the  blue  tiles,  but  thirty 
\ears  after  they  came  here  an  eartluitiake  wrought  destruction, 
and  the  i)iles  of  brick,  and  mortar,  and  smashed  tiles  lie  just  as 
the\-  fell.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  domes  of  Samarkand,  that 
of  the  Aloscpic  of  I)il)i  Khrminn  herself,  the  c^reat  Amir's  consort. 
l!a<  a  hui^e  o|)en  rift  across  it.  and  may  collapse  at  any  momcrT, 
Tlie  cnst  of  })reser\-atie,n  wr.nld  noit  1)e  great,  and  it  is  srirfirising 
that  snine  arclueoloijical  societv  in  Russia  does  not  undertake 
the  task  which  the  Go\ernmeiit  thus  strangel)   neglects.* 


As  Samarkand  and  all  the  surrounding  country  is  Russian 
territory,  and  as  the  connnerce  of  the  place  is  important  and 
rapidlv  growing,  the   Rtissian  town — which,  as  in  the  case  of 

*  Since  I  wrote  the  above  the  folh)\vin_n;  hiinentable  confirmation  ot  tliis  neglect  has 
been  telegraphed  from  St.  I'eter.Nbur^  to  the  Daily  Chroiuclc  : — " 'Jlie  tomb  of  the 
^^reat  Asiatic  concjueror  Tamerhine,  was  plundered  last  month  in  Samarkand.  The 
robbers  not  only  broke  the  valuable  memorial  tablet  that  was  on  the  tomb  under  the 
cupola  of  the  <j;reat  mosque,  where  the  conqueror  is  buried,  but  they  also  took  away 
many  other  valual)les  belonging  to  the  mosque,  which  seems  to  be  practically  un- 
guarded, notwithstanding  it  contains  some  of  the  most  valuable  inscriptions  in  Asia." 


r*'<!B«^0-« 


<^-^y..,  «-vi^>-o»yi  >^^  ■^*^^^^i;£*g:.i±jtli!l±A 


K»^  *  f»  ^^  ^.-mm  *»^^-*<#  W*^^  ^**'-i^  ■^  rf-w^'— v»  *  . 


*^^m  •♦-»-# 


334 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 


? 


I 


I) 


nl 


Bokhara,  is  at  some  distance  from  the  native  one — is  already  of 
considerable  extent  and  importance.  The  Governor's  residence 
is  large  and  spacious — indeed,  somewhat  extravagantly  so — set 
in  the  middle  of  a  square-walled  garden  of  several  acres.  The 
official  departments  are  numerous  and  well-housed,  and  there  is 
an  admirable  school,  on  an  astonishingly  large  scale,  for  the  chil- 
dren of  the  civil  servants  and  Russian  residents.    The  shops  are 


iMiuS(  'k'um  (if  !',ibi  Klianii 


[11. 


not  like  those  in  Sil)cria.  lait  all  (.rdinary  Mii.|)]ios  nia\'  he  |.nr~ 
chased.  The  town  reniiiided  me  <n  s.niie  American  citie:^  in  the 
West,  being  laid  out  like  a  elies^boar.l.  with  wide  street^  planted 
with  trees.  It  is  evident  that  tlie  Russians  foresaw  from  tlie  l)e- 
ginning  the  possibilities  of  the  place,  and  that  they  allowed  room 
for  the  development  that  is  sure  to  come.  The  mountainous 
districts  around  are  l)elieved  to  contain  valual)le  minerals  in 
enormous  quantities,  and  it  is  said  that  a  great  coal-bed  has  been 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND  ^35 

discovered.  The  natives  are  industrious,  and  weave  Moscow 
yarn  into  stuffs  which  have  a  large  local  sale;  many  thousands 
of  acres  are  planted  with  vines,  producing  wine  and  raisins;  and 
the  industry  of  distilling  cau-dc-vie  dc  vin  has  sprung  up  and  is 
growing  fast. 

It  is  curious,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  that  in  such  thriv- 
ing foreign   settlements  there  is  nothing  like  an  hotel.     The 


Tomb  of  Bibi  Khanum. 

nearest  a|)|)r<iach  is  what  are  called  XouicriU  houses  let  out  in 
furni.^hed  rooni^.  in  which  you  can  get  a  cup  of  coffee  in  the 
morning  and  nothing  else  that  you  can  eat.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  military  casino,  or  club,  is  a  fine  l)uilding,  with  dining-rooms, 
l)illiar(l-room,  lil)rary,  and  a  truly  magnificent  ball-room  and  pri- 
vate theatre.  Unless  the  traveller  has  the  entree  to  this,  he  is  very 
badly  otT  in  Samarkand.  At  Tashkent  I  was  formally  introduced 
by  a  courteous  acquaintance,  but  here  I  knew^  nobody,  as  the 
Governor  did  not  trouble  to  acknowledge  the  letter  of  introduc- 


!»* 


33^ 


ALL    THE    RUSSL4.S 


tion  I  left  at  his  residence  from  his  immediate  superior,  the  Gov- 
ernor-General of  Turkestan.  This,  by  the  way,  and  tlie  action  of 
the  Chief  of  Police  of  Askabad,  of  which  1  have  already  si)oken, 
were  the  only  two  occasions  durinc:  my  whole  journey  in  the 
Tsar's  dominions  when  I  was  not  treated  with  tlie  utmost  cour- 
tesy and  consideration,  and  when  every  etYort  was  not  made 
to  enable  me  to  see  everything-  and  learn  everything  that  I 
desired.     I  gladly  take  this  opportunity  to  return  my  cordial 


Maus<'L'.n!i  jnd   W-^qu-  - -t   ^li.ih  7uid.ih. 


thank-.  niiH  to  say  tliat  nowhere  in  tlu'  wmtmI  ouiiu  a  visitmg 
foreigner  have  pursued  his  way  under  happier  conditions.  But 
thi*^  reference  to  the  club  at  Samarkand  reminds  me  of  a  story. 

A-   f  \kwc  <aM  T  ki^i'w  nobody,  and  the  clnl*  was  the  only 

place  ill  the  furciun  M,Mt  IniuMU  u  lirrx' a  decein  nirMl  c^nuA  hr  liad. 
So.  witli  niv  interrupter,  a  v.uhil-:  Ku^-^iaii  Lfciii  Icinaii  wla.  ac- 
companied nic  cviTM\  luaaa  I  inauc  h.  ^M  t**  call  a,t  liu;  ciiin.  a^k 
for  the  name   of  an\-  iAUccv  who  happened   tu  be  present,   and 


SAMARKAxND    AND    BEYOND 


337 


when  a  lieutenant  who  was  playing  billiards  came  out,  to  ex- 
plain to  him  who  I  was  and  what  was  my  plight,  and  to  beg 
that  I  might  be  permitted  to  use  the  club  during  my  short  stay. 


Interior  of  Shah  Zmdah.  Samarkand. 


Like  every  Russian,  he  was  tlie  soul  of  courtesy  wlieii  courte- 
ously apf)roached.  and  he  at  once  sought  another  officer  on  the 
premises  to  be  my  supporter,  and  our  two  names  were  entered  as 


ALL    Tin:    RL'SSL-\S 


SA M AKk A N I )    AN  1 )    Bl  VON  1) 


tion  I  left  at  Ins  residence  froiii  \u>  ininu'tliale  supcriMr,  the  (lov- 
crrior-lieiieral  nf  Tiirke-i an.  Tin-.  1 1\  ilu'  w  a\  .  and  the  aeia  ei  <  >[ 
tile  diief  of  I'ohee  of  A>kabahi.  ..[  which  i  ha\e  ah'eahiy  -i)i>ken, 
were  the  onl\-  two  occasion-  (hu-ini;-  mv  whole  journey  m  the 
Tsar's  dominions  when  I  wa^  not  treated  with  the  titnio>t  cour- 
tesy and  consideration,  and  wlien  every  etTort  was  not  made 
to  enable  me  to  see  e\erythinii-  and  learn  everythino-  that  I 
desired.     1   i;ladlv  take   this  opportnnity  to  retnrn  my  cordial 


Mausoleum  and  Mosque  of  Shah  Zindah. 

thanks,  and  to  say  that  nowhere  in  the  world  could  a  visiting 

foreigner  have  pursued  his  w-ay  under  happier  conditions.     But 

I  hi  is  reference  to  the  club  at  Samarkand  reminds  me  of  a  story. 

As  !  havi"  said.  T  Inu  w  nobody,  and  the  club  was  the  only 

phice  in  tlu'  frn-eign  setliernent  where  a  decent  meal  could  he  liad. 
So.  with  mv  intcr|-n-eter.  a  vonn-'  Rvi--ian  gentleman  \\h<^  ac~ 
comfianicd  me  everxwhere,  I  made  hold  to  call  at  tlie  clnlv  ask 
for  the  name  of  any  oOlcer  who  ]iap|)ened  to  l)e  |)re-ent,  and 


when  a  lieutenant  who  was  playing-  billiards  came  out.  to  ex 
plain  to  him  who  I  was  and  what  was  my  plight,  and  to  bej 
that  I  might  be  permitted  to  use  the  club  during  my  short  sta\ 


(T 


Interiisr  ni  Siiah  Zindah.  SaniarkniKi. 


Like  every  Rtissian,  he  was  the  sotil  of  courtesy  wdien  coiu'te^ 
ously  approached,  and  he  at  once  sought  another  officer  on  the 
premises  to  be  my  supporter,  and  our  two  names  were  entered  as 


a 


33^ 


ALL    IHi:    RUSSIAS 


SA\L\RKAND    AND    BEYOND 


339 


guests  on  the  spot.  This  is  one  example  of  many  sucli  acts  of 
friendly  politeness.  Now  for  the  story — which  shows  another 
side  of  foreign  life  in  Russia,  h  wa>  during  the  Imkm-  War,  when 
things  were  not  going  well  for  us  in  South  Africa,  and  anti- 
British  feeling  ran  very  high  in  Russia  and  the  newsi)ai)ers  served 
up  a  daily  hash  of  denunciations  and  lies  manufactured  in  Brus- 
sels.   Things  reached  such  a  pass  at  last  that  British  Consuls,  in 


The  H'  •ur  ■  -i    i'r.i'vcr,  >afiiai  k.iud. 


i.j.i   ,,..,.,.^1,.   :„^,,i|p^i    J,, 


full  unif.  ;rm,  on  ufflcial  occasiouc;.  were  ilclii'vriiicw  m^ii 
[)ul.Hic  b\-  Kui^sian  ()ftici;ii-  nt  liigli  rank.  With  tVie  timiditv'  that 
lias  characterised  it  (hiring  tlie  pa^t  Uvc  vcrir-  tiir  inni-ii  l-(U-i-i-ii 
Office,  instead  of  ()ffiiciall>-  taking  ti{)  tlie^e  insults  and  tlm^  hring- 
ing  them  to  an  instant  stof),  ordered  all  our  Coii:-uls  to  a1)sent 
themselves  on  public  occasions.  1dh<  order  was  the  restilt  of  an 
exceeding] V  gross  insult  offered  to  otir  Constil  in  Moscow  ])y  a 
Russian  General  at  an  official  party  given  by  the  (jOvernor-Gen- 


eral  there — an  insult  which  compelled  him  to  rise,  seek  his  wife 
at  another  table,  proceed  to  the  table  where  the  Grand  Duke 
and  the  Grand  Duchess  were  sitting  at  supper,  make  his  bows, 
and  withdraw,  the  most  marked  action  that  a  foreigner  could 
possibly  take  in  the  presence  of  Russian  royalty.  This,  however, 
is  not  the  story,  which  contains  one  of  the  most  finished  diplo- 
matic rei)lies  I  have  ever  heard  of.     A  British  Consul-General, 


The  Avenue  ot  Andijan. 

\\-iih  a  niilitar\-  title  frorn  iiaving  served  in  a  famc>u-  Highland 
rei^iTiieni,  wa:-  dining  in  full  tiiiifom]  at  an  otliciai  fxtrt}-  cm  a 
State  occasion  about  this  time.  He  was  seated  at  a  table  with  a 
distinguished  company,  including  a  prince  and  princess.  Wliile 
they  were  talking,  a  well-known  Russian  General,  covered  with 
decorations,  walked  across  from  another  table,  his  glass  in  his 
hand,  and  holding  it  before  the  face  of  the  British  Consul-Gen- 
eral exclaimed,  **  Jc  bois  a  la  santc  dcs  braves  Boers! ''     It  was  a 


11 


340 


ALI.    rili:    RUSSIAS 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 


341 


moment  that  would  have  tested  the  nio-t  experienced  (Hplomacy. 
But  the  Scotsman  was  ecpial  to  it.  d  he  nisuk  was  deliberate  and 
gross:  moreover,  it  was  ofhcial.  and  the  Consul  would  have  been 
whollv  within  his  rights  if  he  had  treated  it  as  such,  left  the  room, 


The  Native  roiu'eman  -  >f  Andn:in. 

reported  it  In  hi.  Aniba--ador.  and  demanded  an  apolocrv.  ddiis, 
liowcver,  in  tlie  circnni-tanci--.  ai^l  cniix,idcrin,u-  the  relatmiis  of 
the  two  countrie>,  \\<«nld  haw-  l>een  a.  blunder,  arul  the  Forei,u-n 
Office,  while  it  would  have  been  cumpelled  to  take  up  his  case, 


would  lia\e  rejj'arded  him  as  a  tactless  mischief-maker.  Still, 
some  reply  had  to  l)e  made  on  the  spot,  and  a  dignitied  one. 
Tlie  Consul-General  rose  instantly,  witli  perfect  self-contrul  ig- 
nored the  intended  affront,  and  touchiiiiJ  his  i^iass  to  the  Gen- 
erabs  responded,  **  Aux  braz'cs  dc  tonics  Ics  uaiioiis,  inon  General!  '' 
It  would  1)6  difticult  to  beat  that  reply,  and  the  Russians  them- 
selves were  loud  in  their  praises  of  such  consummate  tact.  The 
man  wdio  made  it  was  severely  wounded  by  a  Boer  shell  not  long 
afterward. 


Beyond  Samarkand,  along  tlie  eastern  branch  of  the  Trans- 
Caspian  to  its  terminus  at  Andijan,  lies  the  cotton  country  of 
ddirkestan.  The  towns  themselves — Khodjent,  Kokand.  Marge- 
Ian  (th.e  administrative  capital  of  Fergana),  and  Andijan — are  on 
a  ^mailer  scale  like  those  1  have  described.  Kokaiitl  with  a  pa^t, 
^largcian  wnh  a  present  of  greater  iin|)( -rtance.  Xolb^ng  in 
ibeni  call^  for  additional  n-mark,  exce]^t  cinton.     Wdiere  there 


e  - 


is  no  v.aier,  or  no  system  of  irrigation,  desolation  reigns.     1 

member  well  how  the  tram  stopped,  late  one  afternoon,  at  a 
station  in  the  middle  of  the  desert.  Not  a  house  or  a  leaf  was 
in  sight.  A  few  dogs  were  prowling  about,  an  old  man  on  a 
camel  was  just  starting  across  the  trackless  sand,  and  a  long- 
bearded  Sart  VNas  delighting  the  Russian  station-master's  little 
son  In-  -ettinQ-  him  upon  his  ass.  A  iumdred  yards  from  the 
station  va  re  seven  graves  in  the  sand,  eacli  with  a  rough  wooden 
cross  above  it,  and  by  tlie  Mglii  ui  ilic  siatiuii-nia^lei  himself, 
thin,  r^ale.  bent,  witli  crooked  knees.  T  nidged  there  would  soon 
be  eiLdu  ( diven  water,  and  the  scene  changes  to  fat  fields,  cosey 
dwellings.  bUtominir  o-nrdens.  pro^perons  native-,  and  nionntanis 
of  l):de-  of  cottcm  awaitini^  tran^])rirt, 

ddie  cr)ttondand  is  the  pro|)ertv  of  tlio^^e  natives  who  were  in 
occupation  of  it  when  the  Russians  came,  and  everv  eftort  is 
wi^^elv  made  to  keep  it  in  their  hands.     Before   they   can  sell. 


! 


34' 


ALL    IHK    RUSSIAS 


they  must  procure  the  written  ])erniission  of  three  Kacis,  or 
native  judges,  and  tlien  the  Russian  Chief  of  the  District  can 
either  give  or  withhold  his  consent  to  the  transaction,  and  ni 
anv  case  he  onlv  gives  permission  wlien  none  of  the  native  neigh- 
hours  wish  to  i)urchase.  The  land-tax  is  hased  upon  a  (juin- 
quennial  classification  according  to  croj),  and  its  maximum  is 
()  roul)les  per  dcssiatina   (2.7  acres*)  for  cottondand,  and   j\ 


roll  hit': 

! 


i'av-kiiiir  C' '!''  -n  in  Andij.m. 

for  ricelaiid.  'Thai  which  pa\^  7!  roiihie>  i>  sold  at 
aJMnit  ;uo  rMul.ic^  ihr  (/.o-,oj'///(/ — al)oul  £2n  an  nrre.  Land 
bought  twelve  }ear>  ago  f.  .r  17  r^^uluv^  i-  t^-day  w.nnh  300. 
which  explains  the  prnc;porit\-  of  ^*tme  (.1  tlic  oi-lcr  (a.tinii  aoni- 
panies.  In  Fergana  tlie  croj)  a\-erages  60  ponds — ratlicr  le^<  tlian 
a  ton-— of  raw  cotton  to  tlu-  drssiiiliiuL  or  about  800  11)>  to  the 

*  Murray'^  Handbook  to  Ru..ui  islh  cd..  p.  [05].  ^ivc^  unc  Jo.nAtiuj  as  equal  to 
28.6  acres! 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 


343 


acre;  at  Merv,  50  pouds,  and  at  Tashkent,  30  pouds.    Ten  years 
ago  a  Sart  labourer  was  paid  17  kopecks  a  day:  now  he  receives 
from  sixty  to  seventy.     The  buyers  make  an  advance  upon  the 
crop  in  February  or  :\larch,  and  the  harvest  is  in  September  and 
Octol)er;   but  this  system  has  the  obvious  disadvantage  that  the 
natives,  being   sure  of  their  money,  take  less  pains  with   the 
crop.     Several  Americans  have  visited  Fergana  lately,  with  a 
view     to  the  investment  of  capital.     One,  who  had  left  three 
weeks   before   my   visit,   had    offered   to   irrigate   (wer   450.000 
acres  of  the  terrible  so-called  "  Famine  Steppe,"  fn-m  the  water 
of  the  Syr-Darya,  on  condition  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  let 
the  land  along  tlie  canal  to  natives  for  a  hundred  years,  at  a  rent 
to  l)e  agreed  upon  between  the  Government  and  himself,  the 
irrigation  works  to  be  the  pro])erty  of  the  Government  at  the 
ex|)iration  of  that  period.     Two  others  were  proposing  to  erect 
presses  to  ])roduce  cotton-seed  oil  and  cotton-cake.     Cotton  has 
been  rather  unlucky  lately  in  this  district.     First  of  all  wlien  tiic 
price  of  grain   once  rose,  the  iiativo  all  ha>teiied  to  ]nit  tluar 
land  im<-1cr  grain,  instead  of  cott"]].  with  tlie  natural  result  that 
thev  lost  heavily.     Then  the  revolt  caused  niucli  land  to  go  out 
of  criiti.atiun  lor  a  iirnc.     Tins  year  locusts  have  done   great 
damage.    But  the  future  of  Tr  rkestan  as  a  cotton-growing  coun- 
try is  assured,  and  the  time  will  come  when  Russia  wdll  realise 
her  ideal  of  finding  in  her  own  territory,  beyond  the  Caspian,  all 
the  cotton  needed  by  her  mills  in  Europe  and  those  which  w^ill 
be  built  111  the  Caucasus.     Spinning-mills  at  Baku.  1  may  add, 
will  be  high.lx   profitable  enterprises,  for  on  the  one  han<].  they 
will   save  the  cost  of  iran-port  o>f  the  raw    material   to  central 
Russia  and  <d  ilu^  Hnidied  article  back  again,  and  0:1  the  other, 
the  markct>  of  A^ia  will  be  at  their  door. 


t1 


I  wished  to  see  wdiat  Russian  Central  Asia  looked  like  lieyoral 
the  raihvay.  so  after  a  couple  of  days  spent  at  Andijan.  its  ter- 
minus, I  drove  fifty  versts  to  Osh,  the  last  Russian  town  before 


344 


ALL   THL    RUSSIAS 


the  Chinese  frontier  is  reached,  and  the  startinq-place  for  the 
i^^reat  passes  leachno;-  into  Kash^ar.  ddie  hrst  villai^^e  on  tlie  road 
is  curiously  called  Khartum,  and  I  had  not  c^one  far  l)efore  I  was 
struck  with  the  busy  and  prosperous  life  here  on  the  very  out- 
skirts of  Russia's  territory.  Every  few  yards  on  the  road  I  met 
or  passed  mounted  men,  often  two  on  a  horse,  or  an   arba — 


>i . 


1  ranee  to  Osh. 


tile  hi-Ji  i\  heeled  rnrt-  of  my  illustration,  for  fording  rivers  v.ith- 
out  wviuuii  iluir  loads — piled  with  sacks  of  grain  or  cotton- 
seed civ  lia\ ,  nr  hijci   lull   «i!  \-ei1ed  women  and  prctt\'  (Min^liTn, 

tlie  dri\-cr  Mttin--  a-indc  ihi-  ii^q--r  ]\]  iiu/  -liafts.  <  )iu.'  ».-!i;!i min^- 
figure  went  b} — a  youn^  ma!].  Ii-litly  ih-c^sed  tu  niii.  mi  hi>  ti-t 
a  yellow  hawk,  not  lioodcd.  but  tied  lu-  a  string-  to  its  K'^-.  ready 
to  be  cast  off.    And  a  Kirghiz  lamil\-  pan \ ,  out  slioi)ping.  pleased 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 


345 


P 


me  greatlv.  The  man  was  on  one  horse,  with  a  little  son  perched 
behind  him,  Ids  arms  round  his  father's  waist  and  his  legs  wide- 
stretched  almost  to  splitting  point.  The  woman  was  astride  of 
another  horse,  with  a  baby  before  her,  and  she  looked  gay  in  her 
scarlet  cotton  gown  and  white  hood,  and  masses  of  jingling 
metal  ornaments.    On  her  flat  face,  of  the  colour  of  terra-cotta, 


A  Kirghiz  Family  Shopping  in  Osh. 

could  be  read  the  struggle  between  modesty  and  intense  curios« 
ity  as  I  approached.  Finally  the  latter  conquered,  and  we  had  a 
good  look  at  each  other  till  her  husband  perceived  her  fall,  and 

angrily  drove  her  away. 

The  road  ran  between  wide  cotton-fields,  ther.  tuiy  canals 
planted  uu  either  side  with  pullard  willows.  Just  before  the  town, 
at  a  wavside  teadiou-c.  there  was  a  little  mo^cnie  with  itr^  minaret. 
u hence  the  faithful  were  called  to  prayer.,  in  tlie  u^rk  of  a  hi-h 
tree.  and.  as  1  drove  into  the  tir^t  street.  I  .aw  two  haystacks 
apparenth  ce.ming  mward  me  and  filling  the  road  from  side  to 


\ 


346 


ALL    THi;    RUSSL^S 


SAMARKAND    AND    BEYOND 


347 


side.  These  turned  out  to  he  ctiorniously  laden  donkeys,  with 
nothing  but  their  noses  and  hoofs  visible.  Then  two  miles  of 
dee])lv  rutted  roads,  between  thick  earthen  houses,  their  Ikit 
roofs  bearing  great  heaps  of  maize-straw,  millet-sheaves,  and 
green  hay,  brought  me  to  the  centre  of  the  town,  where  a  crowd 
of  natives,  their  horses  tethered  in  a  long  row  against  the  wall, 
were  sathered  in  front  of  the  Uxescbwxe  f^ravloixc,  the  office  of 


A  M.>ther  and  D.iui^hter  .>f  Osh  and  thc'ir  Home. 

the  Russian  administrator,  and  tlie  posl-uffice.  (  ^h  i>  rniiark- 
able  for  a  number  of  high-walled  enclosure^,  with  huge  wooden 
gates.  At  first  I  thought  they  were  old  furts  of  some  kind,  but 
they  turned  out  to  be  for  droves  of  horses  and  cattle.  And  the 
number  of  chaihannas,  open  tea-houses,  all  well  patronised,  and 
singularly  picturesque  at  night  when  white-turbaned  grou])S 
gather  round  the  blazing  fire,  show  that  the  people  of  Dsh  are 
what  the  Germans  call  gcmitthlich.     Nevertheless  they  often  cast 


l)lack  looks  at  the  foreigner,  and  a  man  ran  at  me  with  a  horse- 
whip while  I  was  taking  one  of  these  photographs.  But  the  little 
girls  cheerily  cried,  Salaam  alcikinn! 

A  magnificent,  mile-long  avenue  of  silver  beeches  leads  to 

the  governor's  residence,  on  a  hillside  overlooking  the  town  and 

a  brown  range  of  mountains.     The  guardian  of  this  outpost  is 

Colonel  Zaitzef,  the  freciuent  host  of  Dr.  Sven  Hedin  during 

the  pauses  of  his  splendid  explorations  in  this  part  of  the  world, 

and    I    found    him    feeling    much 

kindly   anxiety   al)OUt   a   piano  he 

had  undertaken  to  see  safely  on  its 

wav  to  Mr.  Macartney,  the  British 

Resident   at    Kashgar,    which   had 

cTone    astrav    somewhere    between 

here    and    the    Caspian.      On    my 

homeward  journey  1  was  fortunate 

enough   to  discover  it  and  get  it 

sent  forward— a  fact  which  would 

doubtless  be  made  known  at  once 

in    Ka>hgar.    a-    a    telegraph    line 

rnii.^  from  here  rui   X'ernoye. 

I   do  not   tliin.k   that    C  )A\    will 


loiio     itinaiii    a     Ivussian    outpost 


"Osh  and  no  Mistake"— the  End 
of  Mv  Juurney. 


Kashgaria  i^  weakly  held  by 
China;  the  rule  ot  tlu'  ]oc:d  Chi- 
nese officials  is  barbarous,  and 
taxes  are  collected  by  tcM'ture  when 
other  method,  fail;  ^reat  discontent,  therefore,  reigns;  and  Rus- 
sia has  within  her  l)orders.  and  under  her  hand.  Mohammedan 
refugees  who  could  be  slipped  like  hounds  to  raise  rebellion.  The 
Ih-itrsh  Resident  is  compelled,  by  the  deliberate  withholding  of 
support  from  home— going  so  far  as  to  forbid  him  to  wear  a 
uniform-to  plav  a  minor  r61e,  while  his  Russian  colleague  is 
almost  master  in  the  place.     Nor  do  I  see  that  an  arrangement 


w 


34B 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


which  gave  Kashgaria  and  Kiilja — for  the  latter  would  inc\ital)ly 
follow  the  former — to  Russia,  need  raise  an\-  ol)jections  in  I^ng- 
land.  It  is  her  natural  line  of  expansion;  it  is  out  of  any  possible 
sphere  of  ours;  and  it  would  substitute  civilisation  for  extortion 
and  cruelty.  For  my  last  word  about  Cetitral  Asia  must  be — 
and  it  was  the  dominant  thought  in  my  mind  as  1  deci[)hered  the 
faded  word  '*  Osh  "  on  the  official  boundary-post  and  realised 
that  I  had  reached  the  end  of  my  long  joiu-ney — that  Russia 
has  destroyed  nothing  there — except  the  Turkoman  horse  and 
the  Turkoman  carpet — that  was  of  any  value,  and  that  she  has 
brought  peace,  prosperity,  and  probably  quite  as  much  liberty 
as  is  good  for  those  who  enjoy  it. 


ECONOMICS 


CHAPTER   XXU 

M.    DE    WITTE    AND    HIS    POLICY 


FROM  the  unique  and  impressive  spectacle  of  absohite 
autocracy;  from  the  docile,  child-Hke  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple; from  the  vastness  of  Siberia,  slowdy  awaking  to  conscious- 
ness and  productivity  under  the  stimulus  of  a  railway  which  links 
Moscow  to  the  China  Sea;  from  the  beauty  and  Babel  of  the 
Caucasus;  from  the  conquest  and  annexation  of  the  proud  peo- 
ples and  historic  cities  of  Central  Asia — I  turn  to  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent aspect  of  the  Russia  of  to-day.  No  romantic  story  intro- 
duces it;  no  clash  of  arms  or  diplomatic  intrigue  echoes  through 
it;  the  camera  affords  it  but  one  single  illustration— the  portrait 
of  a  man.  To  my  thinking,  however,  it  exhibits  the  most  won- 
derful Russia  of  all. 

''  The  Russian  State  is  by  far  the  greatest  economic  unit  on 
the  face  of  the  globe."  *  To  ninety-nine  readers  out  of  a  hun- 
dred, this  statement  will  doubtless  be  startling.  It  certainly 
was  to  me,  when  I  first  met  with  it,  yet  the  facts  to  justify  it  are 
not  far  to  seek.  The  Russian  State  draws  an  annual  net  profit 
of  45,000,000  roubles  from  its  forests,  mines,  and  agricultural 
property.  It  receives  annually  80,000,000  roubles  (minus  con- 
siderable arrears)  from  its  communities  of  ex-serfs  for  the  use 
of  land  it  ceded  to  or  purchased  for  them.  It  is  building  the 
longest  and  most  costly  railway  in  the  world,  and  it  owns  and 

*  For  this  phrase,  and  for  many  of  the  statistical  facts  which  follow,  I  am  indebted 
to  the  Russian  Journal  of  Financial  Statistics,  an  admirable  periodical  presentation  of 
figures  and  explanations  dealing  with  every  side  of  Russian  economic  and  financial 
activity.  Although  a  semi-ofhcial  publication,  the  statistics  given  in  the  Journal  are 
absolutely  trustworthy. 

'3  10 


tt.yigwwaiKg^<j*aiS"a'i!iimwi!i 


35^ 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


works  over  24,000  miles  of  railways,  the  net  revenue  on  which 
is  equal  to  one-seventh  of  the  net  revenue  of  all  the  railways  of 

the  United  States. 

In  1898  it  received  £180,000,000  into  its  coffers,  nearly  one- 
half  of  which  sum  was  not  produced  by  taxation.  Its  l)udget 
is  greater  than  that  of  France  by  more  than  £40,000,000. 

In  1890,  when  one  of  the  banks  of  London  was  unable  to 
meet  its  obligations,  the  Russian  Government  had  with  it  on 
current  account  a  balance  of  so  many  millions  of  pounds  that 
when  the  Bank  of  England  came  to  the  rescue  a  request  was 
immediately  made  to  Russia  not  to  dispose  of  her  balance  before 
a  certain  date,  since  to  do  so  would  be  to  precipitate  a  financial 
crisis  of  the  utmost  gravity.  Finally,  besides  being  a  capitalist 
and  a  banker  of  this  magnitude,  the  Russian  State  is  also  a 
metallurgist  and  a  spirit-merchant.  In  a  word,  the  proud  claim 
is  made  for  it  that  it  is  the  greatest  land-owner,  the  greatest 
capitalist,  the  greatest  constructor  of  railways,  and  carries  on  the 
largest  business  in  the  world.  This  is  the  aspect  of  contemporary 
Russia  to  which  I  now  turn.  I  need  hardly  add  that  it  can  be 
but  a  brief  consideration  of  a  great  and  complex  subject. 

To  some  people  statistics  ofYer  the  liveliest  interest;  to  most 
they  are  dull  and  soporific.  Therefore  1  do  not  wish  to  till  my 
space  with  tabulated  figures,  and  fortunately  an  easy  way  of 
escape  presents  itself.  Economic,  industrial,  and  commercial 
Russia  of  to-day  is,  in  a  large  degree,  the  work  of  one  living 
statesman,  and  in  his  convictions  and  his  activity  its  direction  is 
incarnate.  This  man  is  Monsieur  de  Witte,  ^Minister  of  Finance, 
and  his  career  is  many  chapters  of  the  story  of  how  modern  Rus- 
sia, in  this  aspect,  came  to  be  what  she  is.  Few  people  who  know 
him  well  would  dispute  the  opinion  that  he  is  perhaps  the 
ablest  and  most  far-seeing  statesman  in  Europe  to-day,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  any  other  exercises  so  great  an  influence  as  he  upon 
the  course  of  events.     Outside  Russia,  however,  and  the  higher 


M.    DE    WITTE    AND    HIS    POLICY        351 

circles  of  diplomacy  and  finance,  he  is  comparatively  little  known, 
and  not  much  that  is  accurate  has  ever  been  written  about  him. 
From  every  point  of  view,  therefore,  his  story  is  worth  telling, 
but  I  must  preface  it  by  the  remark  that  in  no  way  whatever, 
directly  or  indirectly,  is  any  word  here  due  to  his  inspiration,  or 
has  even  any  suggestion  upon  the  subject  ever  been  made  by  him 
to  me.  I  have  had  the  honour  of  conversing  with  M.  de  Witte 
on  a  good  many  occasions,  but  all  that  follows  here  is  my  personal 
view,  and  the  sole  responsibility  for  it  is  my  own.  When  this 
sketch  of  his  career  appeared  in  its  original  form  I  sent  him  a 
copy  of  it.  At  our  next  meeting  he  thanked  me  formally,  but 
neither  then,  nor  at  any  subsequent  time,  did  he  make  one  word 
of  comment  upon  it. 


Serge  Julievich  Witte  was  born  in  1849,  in  the  Caucasus, 
where  his  father,  of  German  descent,  was  Director  of  State  Do- 
mains. His  mother,  nee  Fadayef,  was  the  daughter  of  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Saratof  under  the  Emperor  Nicholas,  and  of  a  Princess 
Dolgoruki,  one  of  the  oldest  and  best-known  Russian  noble 
families.  His  first  studies  were  pursued  at  the  Gymnasium  of 
Tifiis,  which  must  have  been  a  very  strange  place  forty  years  ago. 
with  its  extraordinary  mixtures  of  Georgians,  Armenians.  Circas- 
sians, Persians,  and  the  like,  all  much  more  strongly  marked 
with  their  national  characteristics  than  they  are  in  the  same  city 
to-dav.  To  such  an  environment  in  early  youth  ^l.  de  Witte's 
wide  outlook  in  after-life  may  probably  be  traced.  From  Tiflis 
he  passed  to  the  University  of  Odessa,  where  it  is  said  he  pre- 
sented Georgian  as  the  *'  foreign  language  "  necessary  to  his 
graduation  in  1870,  thus  compelling  ihe  faculty  to  import  a  pro- 
fessor of  Georgian  to  examine  him.  Like  many  another,  he  found 
in  journalism  the  ladder  to  public  life,  :\I.  Katkof,  the  well-known 
editor  of  the  Moscow  ViedomosH,  being  first  his  pattern  and 
afterward  his  chief,  whom  he  supported  enthusiastically  in  more 


1^ 


n 


\ 


i 


mmsmmm 


35'- 


ALL     in  I.    RUSSIAS 


than  one  of  his  harcl-fou-ht  campai-ns  for  a  new  ideal  of  Rus- 
sian patriotism.     He  was  also  a  collaborator  of  the  once  lanions 

M.  cle  Witte's  first  post  was  a  modest  one  in  the  service  of  the 
Odessa  Ra.hvav.  %vhich  at  that  time  helon-e.l  to  the  State.     lie 
rose  steadily  from  one  ^ra.le  to  another,  and  h.s  personal  <|naht,es 
^vere  so  his^hlv  esteenie.l  that  the  nnnncipality  of  O.lessa  elected 
him  to  the'  post  of  honorary  magistrate,  a  kin.l  '.f  jn.licial  arbi- 
trator to  whose  decision  both  parties  >n  a  dtsprte  can  a-ree  to 
refer  the   issue  between   thetn.      .\l    thi^  :iine.    loo,   the   O.lessa 
Railwav,  toci-ether  w.ili  other  adioinm-  tnK-,  w.as  conceded  by 
the  State  to  private  enterprise,  .-md  the  uh-.le,  amunntin-  f.  -■.ooo 
mile-,  of  road,    formed   int,.   the    impnrtanl    Southwest    Kailwav 
Companv.  of  which  M.  de  Wuie,  uh-  ha.l  attracted  f,-iv,nu-;d.le 
„,„cia!    nntice    bv    a    u-rk    npnn    the   prmcplc^    -i    a    muNci-.d 
ra.lu.av    tarill,    ultimately    :vhn<lcA    liit .  .u-li,  ml     Uu^-^a,    became 
..^.,„-ral     manao-cr    after     ten     xcar.-.    oi     ^crMa^      1  )urr.i-     tlse 


Mlll-iil 


(V 


Russo-Turk,-^!.    War    lie   also   greatly   .h^tin-ui^lu  ■! 
administratis  ^kdl   and  energy  m  i.aw.udiuy  iL-'ps  and  sup- 
plies to  ikc  iv.'Wl. 

Pi  iSS-  ,M    i'.rnmc    Minister  of  Finance,  resigned  this  ottice, 

and  A  as  succeeded  bv  -Xk  Vi^hnegradski,  a  niau  of  great  natural 
crifts  and  greater  acquired  knowledge.  He  had  been  for  several 
years  president  of  the  Southwest  Railway  and  other  important 
companies,  and  being,  therefore,  intimately  acquainted  with  M. 
de  Witte's  career  and  capabilities,  one  of  his  f^rst  acts  was  to 
,,,,.■  ■■u-  latter  a  post  in  the  Ministry  of  Finance.  M.  de  Witte 
(Kalme  1  tin.  i.ui  unnaturally  preferring  his  own  independent 
position,  knt  :■  dramatic  incident  which  occurred  soon  afterward 
led  him  nKvn,d,ix  t.>  >!  Petersburg.  .\-  manager  of  the  South- 
wx^.t  Railw.av  ■,!  «a.  \u^  'hv.v  i.^  -a.pervise  tk.  arr.in.^.'V.uaits  of 
the  Imperial  tram.  In  .pile  .u"  in-  caier-etic  w.arnim:-  tlu-e  were 
so  made  a^  In  re:^ult  m  the  lernl/le  cala-tr^iihe  a!  I'.-rki.  when 
thcT-ar,  theT>,arit-a.  and  ikeir  clnkk.en  narn.wlv  e-eai-ed  .ieath. 


M.    DE    WITTE    AND    HIS    POLICY        353 

M.  de  Witte's  action  in  this  connection  recommended  him  so 
strongly  to  the  Tsar  that  soon  afterward  M.  Vishnegradski's  re- 
peated invitation  was  backed  by  an  Imperial  command,  and  he 


His  Excellency  M,  a^   Wittt,  .Ntinister  of  Finance. 

accepted  the  post  of  Director  of  Railwavs.  speciallv  created  for 
limi.  In  March.  1  ><<)-■  be  was  appointed  by  the  Emperor  Mniister 
of  Wavs  of  (.oinmmiicali(»n:    ■'•anng  M.  \'ishnegradski's  long 


354 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


illness  he  undertook  the  duties  of  the  Fniance  Department;  and 
when  the  latter  was  compelled  in  August  to  retire  from  public 
life,  M.  de  Witte  was  appointed,  provisionally  at  hrst,  and  after- 
ward formally,  Minister  of  Finance.  This  was  in  January,  1893, 
and  consequently  by  his  own  unaided  ability  he  had  reached  the 
highest  administrative  post  in  the  Russian  Empire  at  the  age  of 
forty-four.  In  the  very  same  year  he  fought  the  great  tariff  war 
with  Germany,  and  showed  the  world  once  for  all  that  he  could 
handle  colossal  issues  of  national  fmance  with  the  utmost  hardi- 
hood, and  that,  having  once  entered  upon  a  struggle,  he  would 
stop  at  nothing  to  bring  it  to  a  successful  conclusion.  Since  that 
time  his  high-tariiT  neighbours  have  taken  care  to  give  hhii  no 
ground  for  reprisals. 

The  key  to  M.  de  Witte's  economic  views  may  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  at  an  early  period  of  his  career  he  published  a  work 
entitled  ''  The  PoHtical  Economy  of  Friedrich  List."     The  latter 
(1789-1846,  ''the  politico-economic  Messiah  of  two  worlds") 
was  an  apostle  of  what  may  be  called  "  educational  protection," 
and  this  has  been  throughout  his  life,  as  it  still  remains,  the 
fundamental  principle  of  U.  de  Witte's  economic  statesmanship. 
Such  a  principle  assuredly  needs  no  explanation  or  comment  for 
American  readers  at  anv  rate,  to  whom  it  must  be  familiar  alike 
in  theory  and  in  practice.    M.  de  Witte's  statesmanship  has  been 
directed',  up  to  the  present  time,  to  four  ends,  of  which  this  edu- 
cational protection  is  the  i^rst  and  chief.     A  brief  experiment  he 
made,  but  dropped  as  soon  as  wider  knowledge  showed  it  to  be 
unsound,  mav  be  just  mentioned  for  the  sake  of  contrast.     He 
began  with  a  belief  in  ''  rag-baby  "  currency— the  issue  of  as- 
signats,  irredeemal)le  paper  money,  for  the  payment  of  the  cost 
of  public  works.     Of  this  nothing  more  need  l)e  said  than  that 
the  greatest  achievement  of  his  public  life  has  been  won  in  pre- 
cisely the  reverse  direction.     The  second  subject  to  which  he 
turned  his  attention  was  the  fluctuation  in  exchange  of  the  gold 


M.    DE   WITTE   AND    HIS   POLICY        355 

price  of  the  rouble.  These  fluctuations  seem  almost  incredible 
to-day,  in  view  of  the  stability  now  so  flrmly  established.  In 
February,  1888,  the  rouble  was  quoted  in  London  at  19  pence; 
in  September,  1890,  it  sprang  suddenly  to  31  pence;  by  De- 
cember, 1891,  it  had  fallen  to  21  pence.  Between  1877  and 
1896  the  highest  and  lowest  rates  in  London  and  New  York, 
respectively,  were  2s.  gd.  and  i^.  yd.,  and  67  cents  and  38^^  cents. 
The  most  unscrupulous  gambling  took  place  upon  the  Berlin 
bourse.  In  1891  the  hundred-rouble  note  had  actually  been 
quoted  at  rates  varying  from  245.10  marks  to  191.50  marks. 
Financial  reform,  or  indeed  any  important  financial  operation, 
was  almost  impossible  to  a  country  whose  currency  w-as  thus  the 
sport  of  the  money-gamblers,  so  M.  de  Witte  resolved  to  strike, 
and — perhaps  remembering  what  the  tarifT  war  with  Germany 
had  cost  him — at  Berlin.  So  he  struck,  with  his  accustomed 
boldness,  straight  from  the  shoulder.  It  was  decided  that  from 
January  i,  1894,  to  December  31,  1895,  the  gold  price  of  the 
hundred-rouble  note  should  not  fall  below  216  marks,  and  Berlin 
was  informed  that  as  many  paper  roubles  as  she  cared  to  sell 
would  be  bought  at  that  rate.  Berlin  sold  gaily  for  eight  months, 
and  M.  de  Witte  bought;  then,  when  the  final  time  for  delivery 
came,  her  speculators  had  to  go  upon  their  knees  to  the  Russian 
Minister  of  Finance  and  beg  him  of  his  mercy  not  utterly  to  ruin 
them  all.  He  consented  to  let  them  ofT  easily,  and  there  has 
been  no  gambling  in  the  rouble  since.  The  Russian  statistical 
historian  remembers  that  not  long  ago  an  empty  space  used  to 
be  pointed  out  in  the  Berlin  Stock  Exchange,  and  questioners 
WTre  told,  ''  That  is  where  speculators  in  the  rouble  stood." 
Campi  uhi  Troja  furt. 

The  rouble  being  thus  placed  upon  a  stable  basis  of  exchange, 
the  next  step  was  obviously  to  the  gold  standard,  and  this  su- 
preme reform  constitutes  the  third  of  AI.  de  Witte's  aims.  The 
policy  which  had  stopped  the  gambling  at  Berlin  was  continued 
till  November,  1897,  by  which  time  experience  had  shown  con- 


^.i 


3S(> 


ALL  THE    RUSSIAS 


clusively  that  the  resources  of  the  Russian  treasury  were  suffi- 
cient to  enable  it  to  announce  definitively  that  i)ayments  would 
henceforth  be  made  in  gold  specie,  and  by  an  Imperial  ukac  of 
November  14,  1897,  every  rouble  note  was  made  to  bear  upon 
its  face  an  undertaking  to  that  effect.  The  most  remarkable 
fact  about  this  resumption  of  specie  payments  is  the  enormous 
contraction  of  paper  money  by  which  it  was  accompanied.  On 
January  i,  1892,  the  amount  of  pai)er  roubles  issued  was  1,121,- 
000,000;  to-day  it  is  630,000.000.  That  is,  over  £52,000,000  of 
paper  money  was  withdrawn  from  circulation,  the  public  being 
literally  compelled  to  take  gold.  And  what  makes  this  enor- 
mous contraction  the  more  remarkable,  if  not  indeed  unique, 
is  that  as  in  Russia  the  State  alone  issues  paper  money,  these 
notes  were  not  withdrawn  in  one  form  to  be  reissued  in 
another. 

M.  de  Witte's  fourth  great  undertaking— the  first  in  point 
of  time— is  under  way  to-day,  but  it  will  not  be  concluded  for 
several  years.  This  is  the  government  monopoly  of  the  sale  of 
alcohol.  Hitherto  his  official  achievements  had  been  in  the  line 
of  economic  science,  connected  only  indirectly  with  social  prob- 
lems. His  latest  legislation,  however,  strikes  deep  to  the  very 
roots  of  popular  welfare.  Drunkenness  is  a  great  curse  in  Russia, 
as  everywhere.  The  consumption  of  alcohol  per  head  is  not  so 
great  there  as  in  the  United  Kingdom,  but  it  does  more  harm,  for 
there  is  in  Russia  an  entire  class,  the  peasants— the  very  class 
upon  whom  in  the  last  analysis  the  prosperity  and  security  of  the 
country  rest — which  is  impoverished  and  degraded  l)y  drink  to 
an  extent  not  found  in  any  class  of  any  other  country.  The  very 
virtues  of  the  Russian  peasant— his  good-humour,  his  sociability, 
his  kindness  of  heart— make  him  an  easy  victim,  and  to  these 
must  be  added  the  terrible  loneliness  of  his  life,  the  long  black 
evenings  of  w^inter,  the  total  absence  of  any  other  form  of  enter- 
tainment, his  ignorance  and  illiteracy,  and  finally  the  poisonous 


M.    DE    WITTE   AND    HIS    POLICY        357 

filth  which  has  been  all  that  he  could  buy  in  the  shape  of  alcohol. 
To  the  late  Emperor  Alexander  HI.  belongs  the  credit  of  seeing 
that  this  evil,  destroying  his  people  wdiolesale,  must  absolutely  be 
stopped  so  far  as  legislation  can  stop  it,  but  hitherto  no  Russian 
statesman  has  been  found  courageous  enough  to  carry  the  gigan- 
tic task  to  its  logical  conclusion.    Already  in  1885  a  law  had  been 
passed  prohibiting  the  sale  of  spirits  apart  from  the  sale  of  food, 
except  in  corked  bottles,  and  forbidding  the  estabHshments  per- 
mitted to  sell  spirits  by  the  bottle  to  consist  of  more  than  one 
room,  or  to  have  on  the  premises  any  spirits  in  open  vessels.    This 
law  killed  the  drinking-house,  pure  and  simple,  but  the  peasant 
could  still  drink  all  he  desired  by  going  to  a  traktir,  or  restaurant, 
where  a  few  bits  of  fish  and  bread  were  also  for  sale.    It  did  noth- 
ing to  prevent  the  sale  of  physiologically  noxious  spirit,  and, 
most  important,  it  left  the  publican  free  to  buy  the  peasant's 
labour  or  produce  for  spirit— the  most  ruinous  course  of  all.    The 
Emperor  Alexander  HI.  perceived  that  what  had  been  done  so  far 
was  after  all  but  a  half-measure,  and  that  nothing  short  of  a  State 
control  of  the  retail  sale  of  drink  would  save  the  peasant  from 
ruin.    But  M.  Bunge,  the  first  Minister  of  Finance  to  whom  the 
opportunity  was  given,  dared  not  seize  it;    M.  Vishnegradski, 
the  second,  determined  to  do  so,  but  always  put  off  the  first 
step  till  the  morrow;   M.  de  Witte,  fresh  from  his  financial  suc- 
cess, and  looking  for  new  legislative  worlds  to  conquer,  took 
upon  himself  the  burden  of  this  reform,  and  by  the  law  of  1894 
a  gradual  government  monopoly  of  the  sale  of  spirit  was  estab- 
lished. 

The  principles  upon  which  he  has  acted  are  briefly  as  follows : 
A  man  drinks  for  three  reasons :  First,  because  he  has  a  natural 
desire  to  do  so;  second,  because  he  is  excited  to  do  so;  or  third, 
because  he  is  given  credit  to  enable  him  to  do  so.  From  the  first 
of  these  reasons  drinking  is  seen  to  be  inevitable;  complete  pro- 
hibition is  impossible,  and  the  evasion  of  it  only  leads  to  more 
destructive  drinking  than  that  for  which  a  cure  is  sought.    But 


358 


ALL   THE    RUSSLA.S 


J 

•i 


i 


!    / 


the  second  and  third  causes  i^iven  above  can  be  removed:  it 
shall  be  no  man's  interest  to  excite  another  to  drink,  and  no  man 
shall  be  supplied  with  drink  on  credit.  Incidentally,  no  man  shall 
drink  stuff  which  poisons  him  physically  and  destroys  him 
morally.  Therefore  it  follows  that  nobody  except  the  State  shall 
make  either  a  direct  or  indirect  profit  from  the  sale  of  spirit. 
On  January  i,  1901.  the  kiw  of  1894  was  extended  to  all  Russia 
except  Siberia  and  the  Caucasus,  and  therefore  in  a  short  time 
the  whole  manufacture  and  sale  of  spirit  in  the  Russian  Empire 
will  be  a  strict  i^overnment  monoi)oly;  the  spirit  will  be  of 
pure  quality;  it  will  not  be  sold  by  the  glass  except  bona  fide 
with  food;  and  it  will  be  sold  for  cash  only.  I  have  heard  not 
a  little  complaint  and  indeed  denunciation  of  this  le,gislation, 
but  in  my  opinion  it  is  a  mao-nificent  reform,  under  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  Russian  life,  and  redounds  to  the  honour  alike 
of  the  monarch  who  perceived  its  necessity,  and  of  the  states- 
man who  is  carrying-  it  into  effect. 

In  one  respect  this  reform  offers  far  less  difficulty  in  Russia 
than,  for  instance,  in  England.  In  the  latter  country  a  man  gets 
drunk,  at  his  pleasure,  upon  brandy,  or  whiskey,  or  gin,  or  rum, 
or  beer;  in  the  former  the  only  intoxicant  known  to  the  people 
is  vodka.  There  remains,  of  course,  nothing  to  prevent  the  peas- 
ant from  buying  his  bottle  of  corn-brandy  and  drinking  it  at 
home,  but  there,  at  any  rate,  as  has  been  well  said,  "  the  bland- 
ishments of  the  publican  would  probably  be  replaced  by  conjugal 
remonstrances." 

Finally,  in  this  connection,  what  has  been  the  financial  result 
of  monopoly  so  far  as  it  has  gone?  Monopoly  was  certainly  not 
introduced  into  Russia  for  any  profit  it  might  bring — the  other 
reasons  for  it  were  so  overwhelming  as  to  render  that  one  un- 
necessary— but  it  has  been  a  source  of  additional  revenue  to  the 
State,  all  the  same,  for  the  net  profit  for  1901  is  calculated  at 
over  four  millions  sterling.  The  uniform  price  of  spirit  is  now 
6^. — $1.45 — a  gallon. 


1~^^ 


M. 


DE   WITTE   AND    HIS    POLICY        359 


I  have  said  already  that  the  system  of  ''  educational  protec- 
tion "—in  plain  language,  the  development  of  home  industries 
by  means  of  high  duties  upon  imported  manufactured  articles  and 
upon  raw  material  which  the  country  itself  is  also  able  to  produce 
—has  been  the  central  idea  of  M.  de  Witte's  national  policy. 
With  the  resulting  industrial  and  commercial  Russia  of  to-day  he 
is  more  closely  identified  than  any  other  man.    In  a  recent  report 
to  the  Emperor  he  points  to  this  with  pardonable  pride.    Classify- 
ing the  national  industrial  production  under  nine  heads— textiles, 
food,  animal  products,  wood,  paper,  chemicals,  pottery,  manu- 
factured metal,  and  various— from  1878  to  1887  Russia  produced 
26,000,000  roubles'  worth;  from  1888-92  the  output  was  41,- 
000,000   roubles;  and  from    1893-97  it  had   risen   to  no  less 
than  161,000,000  roul)les.     That  is,  the  progress  of  the  figures 
of    industrial    business— the    industrial    turn-over— during    the 
latest  quinquennial  period  was  four  times  that  of  the  preced- 
ing period,  and  six  times  that  which  ended  ten  years  ago.     The 
figures  relating  to  the  extraction  and  production  of  minerals  are 
as  striking  as  those  of  manufacture.     Of  coal,  petroleum,  pig- 
iron,  iron,  and  steel,  Russia  produced  in  1877  a  total  of  1,700,000 
tons;  in   1898  she  produced  close  upon  24,000,000  tons.     To 
take  the  latest  figures  of  all— of  coal,  cast  and  wrought  iron, 
steel,   and  cotton  goods,   Russia  produced  in   1892,   9,000,000 
tons,  and  in  1900  nearly  21,000,000  tons.*     Such  figures  are 
alone  a  sufficient  justification  of  M.  de  Witte's  policy,  but  as, 
under  the  Emperor,  he  controls  the  economic  and  industrial 
future  of  Russia,  and  as  foreign  capitalists  will  certainly  turn 
their  attention  more  and  more  to  that  country,  it  is  worth  w^hile 
to  quote  from  his  own  lips  a  lucid  summary  and  defence  of  his 
actions.    He  gave  this  in  an  official  speech  a  few  years  ago,  but 
I  have  never  seen  it  in  English. 

"  History   shows,"   he   said,   *'  that   exclusively  agricultural 
countries,  even  when  they  are  politically  independent  and  inter- 

♦  The  exact  and  detailed  figures  will  be  found  in  the  next  chapter. 


ti      ( 


358 


ALL   THE    RUSSLIS 


J 


*  / 


r      i 


f* 


I 


W' 


k 


the  second  and  third  causes  given  above  can  be  removed:  it 
shall  be  no  man's  interest  to  excite  another  to  drink,  and  no  man 
shall  be  supplied  with  drink  on  credit.  Incidentally,  no  man  shall 
drink  stuff  which  poisons  him  physically  and  destroys  him 
morallv.  Therefore  it  follows  that  nobodv  except  the  State  shall 
make  either  a  direct  or  indirect  profit  from  the  sale  of  spirit. 
On  January  i,  1901,  the  law  of  1894  was  extended  to  all  Russia 
except  Siberia  and  tlie  Caucasus,  and  therefore  in  a  short  time 
the  whole  manufacture  and  sale  of  spirit  in  the  Russian  Empire 
will  be  a  strict  g-overnment  monopoly;  the  spirit  will  be  oi 
pure  quality;  it  will  not  be  sold  by  the  glass  except  bona  fide 
with  food;  and  it  will  be  sold  for  cash  only.  I  have  heard  not 
a  little  complaint  and  indeed  denunciation  of  this  legislation, 
but  in  my  opinion  it  is  a  magnificent  reform,  under  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  Russian  life,  and  redounds  to  the  honour  alike 
of  the  monarch  who  perceived  its  necessity,  and  of  the  states- 
man who  is  carrying  it  iiUo  effect. 

In  one  respect  this  reform  offers  far  less  difficulty  in  Russia 
than,  for  instance,  in  England.  In  the  latter  country  a  man  gets 
drunk,  at  his  pleasure,  upon  brandy,  or  whiskey,  or  gin,  or  rum, 
or  beer;  in  the  former  the  only  intoxicant  known  to  the  people 
is  vodka.  There  remains,  of  course,  nothing  to  prevent  the  peas- 
ant from  buying  his  bottle  of  corn-brandy  and  drinking  it  at 
home,  l)ut  there,  at  any  rate,  as  has  l)een  well  said,  ''  the  bland- 
ishments of  the  publican  would  probably  be  replaced  by  conjugal 
remonstrances." 

Finally,  in  this  connection,  what  has  been  the  financial  result 
of  monopoly  so  far  as  it  has  gone?  Monopoly  was  certainly  not 
introduced  into  Russia  for  any  profit  it  might  bring — the  other 
reasons  for  it  were  so  overwhelming  as  to  render  that  one  un- 
necessary— but  it  has  been  a  source  of  additional  revenue  to  the 
State,  all  the  same,  for  the  net  profit  for  1901  is  calculated  at 
over  four  millions  sterling.  The  uniform  price  of  spirit  is  now 
6s. — $1.45 — a  gallon. 


M.    DE   WITTE   AND    HIS   POLICY        359 

I  have  said  already  that  the  system  of  ''  educational  protec- 
tion "—in  plain  language,  the  development  of  home  industries 
by  means  of  high  duties  upon  imported  manufactured  articles  and 
upon  raw  material  which  the  country  itself  is  also  able  to  produce 
—has  been  the  central  idea  of  M.  de  Witte's  national  policy. 
With  the  resulting  industrial  and  commercial  Russia  of  to-day  he 
is  more  closely  identified  than  any  other  man.    In  a  recent  report 
to  the  Emperor  he  points  to  this  with  pardonable  pride.    Classify- 
ing the  national  industrial  production  under  nine  heads— textiles, 
food,  animal  products,  wood,  paper,  chemicals,  pottery,  manu- 
factured metal,  and  various— from  1878  to  1887  Russia  produced 
26,000,000  roubles'  worth;  from  1888-92  the  output  was  41  r 
000,000   roubles;   and   from    1893-97  it  had   risen   to   no   less 
than  161,000,000  roubles.     That  is,  the  progress  of  the  figures 
of    industrial    business— the    industrial    turn-over— during    the 
latest  quinquennial  period  was  four  times  that  of  the  preced- 
ing period,  and  six  times  that  which  ended  ten  years  ago.     The 
figures  relating  to  the  extraction  and  production  of  minerals  are 
as  striking  as  those  of  manufacture.     Of  coal,  petroleum,  pig- 
iron,  iron,  and  steel,  Russia  produced  in  1877  a  total  of  1,700,000 
tons;  in   1898  she  produced  close  upon  24,000,000  tons.     To 
take  the  latest  figures  of  all — of  coal,  cast  and  wrought  iron, 
steel,  and  cotton  goods,   Russia  produced  in   1892,  9,000,000 
tons,  and  in  1900  nearly  21,000,000  tons.*     Such  figures  are 
alone  a  sufficient  justification  of  M.  de  Witte's  policy,  but  as, 
under  the   Emperor,  he  controls  the  economic  and  industrial 
future  of  Russia,  and  as  foreign  capitalists  will  certainly  turn 
their  attention  more  and  more  to  that  country,  it  is  worth  while 
to  quote  from  his  own  lips  a  lucid  summary  and  defence  of  his 
actions.    He  gave  this  in  an  official  speech  a  few  years  ago,  but 
I  have  never  seen  it  in  English. 

''  History   shows,"   he   said,   ''  that   exclusively  agricultural 
countries,  even  when  they  are  politically  independent  and  inter- 

*  The  exact  and  detailed  figures  will  be  found  in  the  next  chapter. 


i 


irv- 


'  J*"""""'"^ 


360 


ALL   THK    RUSSLAS 


M. 


DE   WITTE    AND    HIS    POLICY        361 


-'  i 

'I  - 

.;  t 

r  I 


nationally  powerful,  are  economically  restricted  to  the  rcMe  of 
tributary  colonies  to  industrial  countries,  which  are,  so  to  speak, 
their  metropolis.  In  exclusively  agricultural  countries  neither 
intensive  agriculture  nor  an  accumulation  of  capital  is  possible. 
A  large  spirit  of  enterprise  is  never  found  there.  Technical 
knowledge  is  rare  there,  and,  as  our  own  exj)erience  shows,  even 
the  food  of  the  people  depends  upon  circumstances  now  of  one 
kind,  now  of  another,  against  which  agriculture  cannot  contend. 
.  .  .  The  best  protection  that  can  be  afforded  to  agriculture 
consists  in  assuring  for  it  a  market  at  home  for  its  products,  and 
remunerative  wages  for  labour  which  fmds  no  occupation  on  the 
land.  .  .  .  The  ultimate  aim  of  the  protectionist  system  is 
therefore  to  enfranchise  our  national  production  from  its  de- 
pendence alike  upon  foreign  labour  and  foreign  markets,  and  to 
raise  our  country  to  an  economic  unity  of  an  independent  im- 
portance. Like  all  other  methods  of  action,  protection  should 
only  be  regarded  as  a  temporary  measure,  in  force  until  the  time 
comes  when  its  object  is  reached. 

"  It  is  not,  however,  surprising  that  many  persons  think  this 
temporary  measure  should  be  permanent.  Those  who  benefit 
by  protection  are  not  disposed  to  let  themselves  be  deprived  of 
all  the  advantages  which  it  brings  them.  That  is  why  we  see  a 
certain  dissatisfaction  at  the  influx  of  foreign  capital  for  industrial 
purposes,  capital  which  creates  competition,  which  in  its  turn 
lowers  prices  and  reduces  profits.  We  sometimes  hear  individual 
interests,  shielding  themselves  behind  a  sham  patriotism,  speak- 
ing of  '  squandering  the  natural  resources  of  our  country,'  or  of 
the  '  enslavement  of  our  people  to  foreigners.'  It  is  not  the  first 
time  that  such  complaints  are  heard.  They  arose  in  the  days  of 
Peter  the  Great,  when  he  wished  to  '  open  the  window  toward 
Europe.'  The  Great  Reformer  himself  had  to  overcome  this 
*  patriotic  '  wish  to  preserve  routine,  ignorance,  the  spirit  of  iso- 
lation— in  a  word,  all  the  fetters  which  confine  the  vital  forces 
of  the  country.    ... 


''  The  protectionist  system  has  the  effect  of  creating  a  school 
for  our  young  industry.  Important  results  have  already  been 
obtained  in  this  respect.  Doubtless  this  school  costs  us  dear. 
The  Russian  consumer  pays  a  high  price  for  manufactured  arti- 
cles: that  is  the  chief  reproach  that  can  be  made  against  pro- 
tection. But  it  is  precisely  for  this  reason  that  the  present  phase 
must  be  traversed  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  this  again  is  why 
we  must  attract  a  large  amount  of  foreign  capital  into  Russia.  ^ 

''  Unhappily,  the  amount  of  available  Russian  capital  is  in- 
sufficient; agriculture  suppHes  almost  none  at  all,  and  hoarded 
capital  can  hardly  be  attracted  toward  industrial  enterprise. 
Abroad,  capital  is  plentiful,  and  it  is  cheap;  we  must  seek  it 
there.  Beyond  all  question  it  is  better  to  see  foreign  capital 
flowing  into  Russia,  than  to  witness  the  importation  of  foreign 
products.  For  it  is  by  means  of  this  foreign  capital  that  Russian 
production  itself  will  be  developed,  obtaining  for  its  own  profit, 
at  the  lowest  calculation,  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the 
manufactured  article." 

This  speech  is  not  only  M.  de  Witte's  reply  to  the  so-called 
"  pro-Russian  "  party,  which  detests  foreigners  and  all  their  ways 
and  works,  and  to  those  who  charge  him  with  destroying  a  nat- 
ural agricultural  community  in  order  to  create  an  artificial  indus- 
trial one,  but  it  is  a  concise  summary  of  Russian  economic  policy. 
It  deserves,  therefore,  the  most  careful  attention  in  other  coun- 
tries. 

Alongside  his  invitation  to  foreign  capital,  as  a  counterpoise 
to  the  protectionist  regime— that  is,  to  replace  by  it  that  healthy 
and  necessary  competition  which  a  high  tariff  of  itself  tends  to 
suppress— M.  de  Witte  has  done  much  to  supply  capital  in 
Russia  with  its  helpmate,  labour.  To  give  one  example  only,  since 
the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  every  peasant  has  had  the  theoreti- 
cal right  to  a  passport  (without  which  he  cannot  move  outside  his 
native  village).  In  practice,  however,  he  was  almost  as  tightly 
chained  to  the  soil  as  before;    for  passports  are  issued  by  the 


'4  .  .'  ■««  V;  v^.'Ti,--'.  **■  ^' 


..*^    •**.    4   •-*'  ^-4  •!■>'  m     '    '     *^  y_:  - 


>f  «Mk.  V   '•<'   < 


.'^  **►  v.*  J( ■■-'-»  •  •?.,•-.-*  ^  V**..  4  .iS'  »  ■-<-■  '^-w.«  .  I  —  '  »  »,    #*.  \M    '^  V".  '#  ■•  -  ,.•,■»»>,  ^  t *-*  »m'->m"m»'i'-  '^'*4 


362 


ALL   THE    RUSSL\S 


>i  'S 


1  r 


;  f 


''t 


'  i 


ti  > 


\ 


i 


;  I 


1/ 


village  community,  the  mir,  and  the  mir  gave  them  only  to  men 
whose  payments  of  taxes  were  not  in  arrears.  But  as  the  mir 
is  always  in  arrears  of  payment,  for  which  all  its  members  are 
jointly  and  severally  responsible,  it  could  refuse  a  passport  to  any- 
body. Moreover,  if  a  number  of  men  were  working  in  a  factory 
away  from  home,  and  that  factory  for  any  reason  were  closed,  the 
police  of  the  place  immediately  shipped  all  the  workmen  back 
to  their  own  communes.  M.  de  Witte  has  gained  for  every  Rus- 
sian of  the  labouring  classes  the  right  to  a  passport  for  at  least  one 
year.  This  reform,  simple  in  itself,  is  obviously  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  development  of  industrial  enterprise,  although 
at  times  of  political  trouble  the  police  authorities  probably  ig- 
nore this  yearly  passport.  Moreover,  he  has  drawn  up  a  code  of 
regulations  corresponding  to  our  I'\'ictory  Acts,  workmen's  com- 
pensation, etc.,  and  is  about  to  present  them  to  the  Council  of 
Mmisters.  These  are  of  the  nature  of  reforms  to  assure  labour 
in  Russia  of  consideration  and  protection  analogous  to  that 
which  it  enjoys  in  other  countries.  Finally,  he  is  at  i)resent 
turning  his  attention  to  the  introduction  of  the  metric  system 
into  Russia,  and  to  the  development  of  a  Russian  mercantile 
marine. 

Such,  in  brief,  are  the  career  and  the  views  of  the  most  influ- 
ential statesman  of  Russia — a  man,  moreover,  if  the  Tsar's  con- 
fidence continues  to  be  extended  to  him  in  the  same  full  measure 
as  hitherto,  whose  influence  upon  Russian  affairs,  national  and 
international,  may  be  even  greater  in  the  future  than  in  the  past. 
One  obvious  danger  accompanies  his  insatiable  activity.  In  or- 
der to  get  things  done  in  accordance  with  his  policy  he  has  trans- 
ferred one  department  after  another  to  tlie  Ministry  of  Finance, 
until  the  work  of  this  office  is  assuming  dimensions  l)eyon(l  the 
personal  supervision  of  any  one  man.  Moreover,  however  great 
the  will,  there  is  a  limit  to  human  endurance,  and  that  limit,  in 
M.  de  Witte's  case,  must  l)e  nearly  reached.  If  his  health  broke 
down,  and  caused  him  to  relinfjuish  his  work  half-finished,  there 
is  no  telling  what  the  consequences  might  be. 


' 


^^'f -•"*•••  ' 


'•i.'C'*  V  '>*"J'»  ■'*'••*'  *-**^'  "    '  '  .J  V  ;  -'  " 


•  ■  \    ' 


J-  ..V--.'-."V.j  ,-.  .  .1.  ,< 


,.  ,   4  ..•.  ,  •.*  -   ..«    .•  ~  ■ 


•^*^.     ■.      >•■       ^    .:•%•  •>^-.,X  ''*3    .»   *** 


CHAPTER    XXIII 
RUSSIAN    FINANCE,   COMMERCE,   AND    INDUSTRY 

THE  finances,  national  and  international,  of  the  Russian 
Empire  form  a  very  complex  subject,  about  which  seri- 
ous misapprehensions  exist,  even  among  foreigners  who  study 
such  matters,  while  gross  mistakes  receive  popular  credence. 
A  volume,  not  a  chapter,  would  be  necessary  for  a  complete 
exposition,  even  if  I  myself  possessed  the  technical  quaHfica- 
tions  for  so  difficult  a  task.  Russian  finance,  industry,  and 
natural  resources  have,  however,  become  of  late  the  subject 
of  frequent  and  familiar  public  comment,  commonly  inexact, 
and  therefore,  even  within  the  restricted  limits  of  my  space  and 
my  own  competence,  I  hope  to  be  able  to  throw  some  light 

upon  them. 

The  Russian  national  debt,  which  is  less  than  those  of 
France  and  England  only,  is  now  £680,000,000  ($3.3ii'- 
000,000).  Upon  this  she  pays  an  annual  interest  of  about 
£27,200,000  ($132,500,000).  Now,  in  view  of  these  vast 
figures  and  the  long  series  of  Russian  loans  that  have  been 
floated  (chiefly  in  France)  during  the  last  few  years,  popular 
opinion,  and  indeed  to  a  large  extent  educated  opinion  also, 
have  come  to  regard  Russia  as  a  country  which  is  not  paying 
its  way,  which  is  expanding  and  undertaking  new^  enterprises 
far  beyond  its  financial  resources,  and  which  can  only  keep 
going  by  constantly  borrowing  from  its  neighbours.  And  this 
opinion  is  often   popularly  illustrated  by  pictures  of   Russian 

363 


3^4 


All.    Mil      lU  SSIAS 


h 


'A 
J 


r 

i  ■ 


i 


^  ,1 1 


r 


!  h  (  !  1 


lit    the   world    trying    to 


.^tatcMucn    and   fniancicr.-    running. 
raise   loans. 

In  one  sense  it  is  perfectly  true  that  Tvtissia  needs  money; 
but  in  the  sense  in  wliich  the  al)ove  opinions  are  coniirionly 
stated  and  believed,  they  are  wholly  inaccurate.  The  Russian 
public  debt  is  very  lar^e,  btit  it  is  bein^^  paid  off  at  the  present 
time  at  the  rate  of  £2,500,000  a  year.  Darin"-  the  past  ten 
years  no  less  than  £30,000,000  has  been  paid  off.  This  striking- 
fact  is  usually  overlooked.  Moreover,  as  security  for  its  debt 
the  Russian  State  (I  am  not  speaking  of  the  country  of 
Russia:  the  difference  is  vital)  has  natural  resources  and  pro- 
ductive public  works  surpassing  in  value  those  of  any  other 
State  in  the  world.  Besides  its  enormous  mineral  w^ealth,  which 
has  hardly  been  scratched  as  yet,  it  draws,  for  instance,  an 
annual  net  revenue  of  more  than  five  millions  sterling  from 
its  forests;  and  while  the  United  States  has  almost  exhausted  its 
timber,  and  Europe  is  looking  around  anxiously  to  see  where 
its  wood  and  wood-pulp  are  to  come  from  in  a  few  years,  the 
Russian  State  has  200,000,000  acres  of  real  forest  as  yet  un- 
touched. (Official  figures  give  a  far  larger  area  than  this,  but 
I  am  speaking  of  genuine  forest,  not  mere  forest-land.)  Russia's 
peasants  pay  (minus  large  arrears)  the  State  an  annual  rent  of 
£8,460,000.  It  owns  and  works  over  24,000  miles  of  railway, 
of  which  the  average  net  earnings  from  1897-99  ^vere  £14,- 
800,000.  Its  budget  shows  a  considerable  surplus  every  year 
— with  these  surpluses  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  has  been 
largely  built.  These  considerations  will  place  the  financial 
j)osition  of  Russia  in  a  new  light  for  most  people;  but  what 
follows  will  astonish  still  more  all  who  have  not  looked  care- 
fully into   the  matter.      I   turn   now  to   Russian  loans. 

During  the  past  fifteen  years  Russia  has  borrowed  enor- 
mously— that  is  what  strikes  the  popular  imagination.  But 
during  these  fifteen  years  Russia  has  converted  and  redeemed 
in  cash   previous  loans  amounting  to  over  £440,000,000.     In 


:i^. 


'<  ,  «  «."     ■"  "  >'tr.'..'*.  .•*".t\4  *f'  '^'    -*  »  .  f.HZ^Tt-.'-'*-  •»•  V*  ¥^^•r^^^''^■•m.\'>-^^l^'^^, 


FINANCK,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     365 

fact,  from  iSSy  to  1901  the  Russian  treasury  has  not  received 
from  nezc  loans  a  single  penny  of  eapital  more  than  the  old 
capital  it  repaid  its  creditors.'' 

How    baseless,    therefore,    is   the    widespread    notion    that 
Russia,  like  a  spendthrift,  borrows  to  fill  the  gap  between  her 
income  and  her  expenditure,  is  thus  seen.     But  why,  it  will 
perhaps  be  asked,  does  Russia  borrow  at  all  under  these  cir- 
cumstances?    For  two  reasons:    First,  to  pay  off  more  costly 
^ebts— loans  previously  contracted  at  a  higher  rate  of  interest 
—and  thus  to  unify  her  debt,  both  for  her  own  economy  and 
for  the  convenience  of  her  creditors ;t  second,  to  construct  pub- 
lic works  necessary  alike  for  the  development  of  her  national 
resources,  and  in  order  that  many  of  the  great  industries  which 
this  development  has  already  called  into  existence,  and  which 
largely  depend  upon  Government  orders  for  their  support,  may 
not   languish  and  disappear,  and  thus  perhaps  fail  her  when 
she  needs  them  most.    This  is  what  happens :    Potential  traffic 
justifies  a  new  railway  between  two  points;  either  the   State 
finds  the  money  in  the  first  place,  or  it  authorises  a  company 
to  do  so,  and  as  the  company  cannot  dispose  of  its  bonds  the 
State  takes  them  over  at  second  hand;  the  railway  is  constructed 
and  gets  to  work;  the  State  borrows  abroad  as  much  as  it  has 
lent  to  the  railway;  instead  of  the  bonds  on,  say,  blue  paper 
of  the  railway,  there  are  the  bonds  on,  say,  white  paper  of  the 
Russian  pubHc  debt.     These  are   precisely  the  circumstances 
under  which  much  of  Russia's  national  indebtedness  has  been 
incurred.     In  conclusion,  the  truth  is  that  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment is  glad  to  borrow  money,  at  a  lower  rate  than  before, 
to  pav  off  debts  bearing  the  higher  interest,  or  to  carry  out 
productive  works,  for  the  reasons  I  have  given  above;  but  it 
is  under  no  present  necessity  whatever— and  has  not  been  for 

*  See  Fcmds  d' Etat  russes  ct  autres  Valeurs  mobilih-es  (published  by  the  Bulletin 

t  Between    1887   and    1900  the    Russian   loans   converted   and  redeemed  in  cash 
amounted  to  a  grand  total  of  ^^44 1,000, 000. 


366 


ALL    Tin-:    RUSSIAS 


i 


twenty  years — to  borrow  at  rates  which  chj  not  fulfil  the  above 
con(htions.* 

As  an  offset  to  licr  national  debt.  Russia — I  am  speakin.q- 
still  of  the  State — has  the  unicjue  i^ood  fortune  to  i)ossess  an 
annual  income  from  actual  property  and  investment  which 
alone  almost  pays  the  annual  chari;e  upon  the  debt.  The 
interest  upon  her  debt  is  670  millions  of  francs.  The  net  earn- 
ings of  her  State  railways,  the  revenue  from  her  forests  and 
agricultural  domains,  and  profits  of  the  Bank  of  Russia,  with 
certain  indemnities,  etc.,  form  together  an  annual  income  of 
650  million  francs.f  And  her  railways  and  domains  are  rapidly 
increasing  in  value.  No  other  State  has  such  a  real  security, 
as  distinct  from  national  credit,  to  offer  its  creditors. 

In  1898-99  the  fiscal  receipts  from  all  sources  exceeded 
the  government  expenditure  (including  £9,516,000  for  ex- 
traordinary naval  shipbuilding  and  £4.315,000  for  expenses  in 
mitigation  of  bad  harvests)  by  £34,458,000.  This  surplus  more 
than  met  the  demands  for  the  construction  of  the  Siberian 
and  other  State  Railways  and  i)urchase  of  rolling  stock, 
£22,922,000,  and  advances  of  capital  to  railway  companies 
for  new  construction,   £9,000,000. 

The  Russian  State,  which  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean 
War  had  but  a  thousand  kilometres  of  railway,  to-day  owns 
and  operates  38.250  kilometres,  of  which  8,345  kilometres  are 

*  In  May,  1901,  a  Russian  four  per  cent,  loan  for  424,000,000  francs  was  floated 
in  Paris,  according  to  the  Imperial  id;7z,  "  in  order  to  rei)lace  in  the  Imperial  Treasury 
the  sums  spent  in  1900  in  advances  to  railroa*!  companies,  and  to  provide  for  similar 
advances  to  be  made  during  the  current  year."  This  loan  was  subscribed  several 
times  over,  the  allotment  being  fifteen  per  cent,  for  jiaid-up  bonds,  and  two-and-a-half 
for  others.  It  is  now  stated  that  another  loan  for  a  thousand  million  francs  (/^o.ooo, - 
000)  will  shortly  be  placed  upon  the  same  market.  Frophecy,  however,  alx.ut  Russian 
loans  is  always  dangerous.  In  fact,  even  official  assurances  do  not  cover  very  long 
periods.  "  I  authorise  you."  M.  de  Witte  i^  reported  to  have  sai<l  to  a  correspondent 
(Dai/y  Tc'h^graph,  March  5,  190O.  "  to  state  over  again,  as  emphatically  as  you  know 
how,  that  I  have  no  intention  whatever  of  borrowing."  Ten  weeks  later  (May  12th) 
the  Imperial  ukaz  authorising  the  loan  was  jiublislied. 

'i  Bulletin  Kussf  lie  Statistique  Fina)ui'i>i\    1901.  page   23. 


FINANC-K,  COMMLRCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     367 

double-track.  This  is  more  than  any  other  State  ni  the  world. 
1  ast  year  in  spite  of  financial  crises  and  commercial  depression, 
raihvay  passengers  increased  in  number  more  than  a  million, 
ami  the  amount  of  freight  earned  was  86.000,000  tons  against 
79,000.000  in  1899.  The  net  annual  revenue  from  the  btate 
raihvavs  alone  pays  half  the  interest  upon  the  national  debt.- 

Such  are,  necessarily  in  a  very  condensed  form,  the  statistical 
facts  concerning  Russian  national  finance  which  are  apparently 
quite  unknown  to  the  host  of  facile  critics  of  contemporary 
Russia,  and  especially  to  those  who  believe  that  Russia  spends 
right  and  left,  upon  all  sorts  of  objects,  the  large  sums  she  has 

borrowed  in  France. f  ,  .  ,     , 

I  must  allude  for  a  moment  to  the  only  way  in  which  these 
remarkable  and  impressive  figures  are  directly  attacked,  namely, 
by   the   charge   that   they   are   not   honest-that   the    Russian 
budget,  in  a  word,  is  "  cooked."    The  allegation  is  neither  fair 
nor  intelligent.    It  is  not  fair,  because  none  of  those  who  make 
it  ever  give  the  grounds  of  their  charge  or  any  alternative  or 
comparative  figures  in  disproof  of  the  of=ficial  ones.     And  it  is 
not  intelligent,  because  the  Russian  budget,  though  it  cannot 
but  be  complicated  when  dealing  with  such  vast  sums,  does  yield 
to  the  careful  student  every  fact  he  desires  to  extract  from  it. 
Some  official  Russian  statistics  undoubtedly  exaggerate-as, 

.  The  eross  revenue  of  all  the  Russian  State  railways  (excluding  the  Siberian,  but 

,1  .ill,  into  this  gross  --^^^^^^.j^^:^::::.  zl. 

biassed  American  engmeertng  '--"^,  '    J^^"^^"    „„^.„„,,  ;„dus,rial  expansion  and 

'°  t  tr:::r ' -'w^r^'Vlst  n'rUt  sigh,  of  ^or  .  .o^ent  that  Russia  is 
„echan,cal  ^--^''  J^^'^  ,     borrow  in  developing  her  magnificent  resources, 

spendmg  every  cent  ^^e  ca"  Poss     y  ^^  ^^.^  ^^^^^  .^^^^^^^^^ 

New  and  m.ghty  canals  are  to  be  cut   r.ver  ^jiw^.    and  workshops  are  being 

forests  cleared  and  waste  lands  reclaimed ,  cfes,  vHage  1  ^^^ 

built,  colonies  are  planted  in  new  ^^^'^^l^  ^-'arW  the  who.e'of  this 
:£,r  :;V^:r  ^st  enti:;^;-^  Vha^:  lx,ained  above  Where  the 
money  really  goes. 


i^ 


.>i 


368 


ALL.    IHi',    RUSSIAS 


,1 


for  example,  iii  reckonin-  mere  k.re.st-land  as  ,i:^eiuiine  timber- 
forest,  but  this  exaoo-eratiou  is  ahvays  evident  to  the  impartial 
student,  and  it  does  net  :ippear  in  tnianeial  statisties.  whieh  are 
kept    and    presented    with    the    titmost    mmutene.ss   and    detaiL 
Compared  witli  the  JM-ench  bud-et.    the  Russian  annual  l)aLanee- 
sheet  is  ehild's  i)hiy.     The  (hflerenee  is  that  the  Russian  Ministry 
of   Finance   desires   for  its  own   sake   that    its   h-ures  shall     be 
understood,  whereas  the  bVench  bud-et  is  an  elaborate  conceal- 
ment,  beneath   colossal   complications   and  endless   cross-refer- 
ence,   of    unwelcome    facts.*       The    memory    of    weary    days 
devoted  to  the  volumes  of  the  French  budi^^et  leads  me  to  say 
that  in  it  only  those  who  hide  can  find.      On  the  other  hand,  any 
statistical   financial  fioure  about   Russia  can   be  found  withoti't 
undue  difficulty  in  the  i)ublications  of  the  Ministry  of  Finance, 
or  those  issued  semi-officially.  with  its  coi^nizance  and  permis- 
sion.    To  suppose   that   the   whole  of  these   is   one    vast   and 
marvellously-calculated  network   of  deceit  is  childish. 

From  la  Jiaiitc  finance  to  the  poor  nuijik  is  a  Ioniser  step  in 
appearance  than  in  reality.     I  turn  to  the  Russian  peasant  here 
because  anyone  who  wishes,  for  whatever  reason,  to  disparage 
the  figures  T  have  cited  above  can  l)est  do  so  by  emphasising 
the  condition  of  the  masses  of  the  Russian  people.     In  spite  of 
all  her  brilliant  progress  in  manufacture,  and  her  great  indus- 
trial developiuent,  Russia  is  still  chielly  an  agricultural  country. 
The  vast  majority  of  her  people  draw  their  living  from  the  soil 
and  must  long  continue  to  do  so.  and  the  economic  ideal  of 
Russian  statesmen  should  be  to  increase  pari  passu  the  material 
wants   of    the    peasantry  and   their  means  of  supplying  them. 
Russia  may— and  I  think,  will,  as  the  other  nation  of  colossal 
natural  resources  developed  behind  a  high  tariff  wall  has  done— 
becoiue  an  exporting  nation,  but  her  best  market  will   always 

*  M.  Paul  I.eroy-P.eaulicu.  the  eminent  French  writer  upon  economics.  "Our 
unhappy  Hud^rets  are  retouched  and  altered  t.,  such  an  extent  that  it  is  impossible  to 
reco.crnize  them  or  fnid  one's  way  about  in  them."  And  see  The  Peoples  and  Politics 
oj  the  Par  East,  pp.   124-127. 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     369 

be  found  under  the  roofs  of  her  own  people.  It  is  but  too  true 
that  the  condition  of  the  Russian  peasantry  is  at  present  far 
froiu  satisfactory.  While  the  people  have  rapidly  increased  in 
number  the  amount  of  land  communally  owned  and  tilled  by 
them  has  remained  constant  since  the  Liberation  of  the  Serfs, 
with  the  result  that  the  outcome  per  family  has  grown  steadily 
less  and  therefore  the  standard  of  physical  well-being  has  slowly 
declined.  Moreover,  th.e  famous  "  black  earth  "  districts,  the 
most  fertile  agricultural  portions  of  the  Empire,  have  been  vis- 
ited, like  the  poorer  lands,  by  repeated  famine.  A  succession  of 
bad  harvests  has  been  even  more  disastrous  in  Russia  than  else- 
where. It  is  not  without  reason,  therefore,  that  the  careful 
observer  puts  forward  the  suffering  mujik  in  reply  to  the  splen- 
did figures  of  the  Minister  of  Finance. 

The  reply  is  effective  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  not  conclusive. 
Other  countries  have  suffered  from  a  succession  of  bad  harvests, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  Russia  will  not  enjoy  the 
fat  years  of  the  cycle  again.*  I  have  taken  some  personal  inter- 
est in  agriculture,  and  I  believe  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  great 
advances  in  the  chemical  and  even  in  the  bacteriological  fertil- 
isation of  land.  If  this  be  so,  Russia  will  profit  more  than  any 
other  country,  and  if  I  were  Minister  of  Finance  I  would 
generously  subsidise  laboratories  of  experimental  agricultural 
chemistry.  The  Government  is  fully  alive  to  the  condition  of 
the  peasantry,  for  it  is  expending  many  millions  of  roubles  upon 
relief,  and  employing  thousands  of  poverty-stricken  peasants  up- 
on the  public  work  most  urgently  needed  in  Russia — road-mak- 
ing. The  last  budget  statement  contains  the  news  that  the 
payment  of  no  less  than  £12,000.000  of  arrears  of  redemption 
of  land  by  the  peasant  proprietors  has  been  virtually  regarded 
as  a  bad  debt.     Over  a  million  sterling  has  been  wiped  off.  and 

*  Indeed,  the  commercial  tide  seems  turning  already.  The  Russian  customs  re- 
ceipts for  the  first  half  of  iQOi.  just  published,  show  an  increase  of  no  less  than 
twenty-f^ve  per  cent,  over  those  for  the  first  half  of  1900—109,000,000  roubles  against 
87,300,000. 


irt 


n 


tfiBg'Jgft.') 


3;o  ALL     rHl.    lU  >>IA:> 

the  paynietU  oi  ten  niiilicuis  been  '*  distributed  b\-  in-tanneiits. 
The  State  niuiiopoly  ul  aleoliol,  aiiil  tlie  iinpr"ve<l  CiUidiiuMi  oi  its 
sale,  will  tend  to  remove  one  of  the  eontnhutni^i;   eau-es  of  the 
peasant's  poverty.     Sil)erian  ai^rienltnre.  too,  is  heini;  opened 
up   for  and  l)v   the   i)easants.      Moreover,    a.L;rienltnre   \va>   not 
tinfortunate  everywhere  ni  Russia  last  year.      Mr.  C  onsulA.en- 
eral  Michell's  Report  says  that  "the  harvest  of   k/X)  in  sixty 
provinces  of  Russia  taken  as  a  whole  is  considered  fairly  favour- 
able," it  being  10.3  per  cent,  in  excess  of  the  averai^e  of  the  pre- 
vious five  years.     The  total  product  of  grain  grown  in  1900  is 
computed,  according  to   the  same  authority,  at    1,119,019,950 
cwts.,  lentils  and  beans  4,949775  ^^^'^s.,  potatoes  513,891,289 
cwts.,  and   19,339  tons  of  butter  were   exported   from  Siberia 
alone.     These  figures  should  mitigate  pessimism  somewhat. 

Finally,  M.  de  Witte's  economic  regime  has  for  one  of  its 
main  aims  to  provide  a  large  proportion  of  the  people  with 
means  of  livelihood  other  than  agriculture,  and  the  production 
in  a  year  of  nearly  5,000,000  tons  of  steel  and  iron,  and  60,- 
000,000  barrels  of  oil,  and  the  raising  of  nearly  16,000,000  tons 
of  coal,  to  sav  nothing  of  the  large  output  of  all  the  mills  and 
factories  of  Moscow  and  Poland,  means  not  a  little  employ- 
ment for  peasants  who  a  few  years  ago  were  all  agricultural 

laborers.* 

Not  only  in  agriculture,  however,  has  Russia  recently  suf- 
fered severely.     Her  commerce  and  industry  are  still  in  a  state 

♦In  order  to  show  that  "the  results  obtained  fully  justify  the  policy  pursued  by 
the  Government,"  M.  de  Witte  has  just  published  statistics  of  the  increase  of  produc- 
tion in  four  great  classes  during  eight  years.     They  may  be  tabulated  as  follows  : 

Output  in  tons,  Output  in  tons. 

1892.  J9<^«- 

(-oal               6.800,000  15,800,000 

Cast  "iron'. '.''.*. 1,050,000  2,850,000 

Wrought  iron  and  steel 984.000  2,000,000 

Cotton  goods 140,000  232,000 

Totals 8,974,000  20,882,000 


hINANCF,,  COMMhRCK,  AM)   INDUSTRY 


.)  I 


of  great  (le|)ression.  P>ritish  readers,  at  any  rate,  liave  not 
lacked  lull  information  upon  this  topic,  for  Mr.  Cooke.  British 
Commercial  Agent  in  Russia,  has  industriously  gathered  and 
forcibly  presented  every  fact  and  deduction  that  places  Russian 
mineral  and  metallurgical  enterprises  in  the  most  discouraging 
light.*  I  do  not  mean  for  a  moment,  of  course,  that  he  has 
sought  to  show  the  situation  as  blacker  than  it  is,  but  only  that, 
in  my  opinion,  his  Report  would  have  been  of  greater  service 
to  the  interests  he  represents  in  Russia  if  the  lights  and  shadows 
had  been  more  naturally  balanced.  Here  is  one  example  of  what 
I  mean.  Mr.  Cooke  says :  '*  The  Russian  iron  industry  has  no 
market  beyond  the  frontier.  Some  lOO  tons  of  southern  pig- 
iron,  it  is  lately  announced,  have  just  been  despatched  from  the 

Kertch  works  to  Leghorn This  new  opening  for 

Russian  iron  produce  has  been  loudly  acclaimed  as  offering 
another  solution  of  present  difficulties."  But  Mr.  Vice-Consul 
Wardrop  had  already  reported  from  Kertch,  a  fortnight  earlier, 
that  ''  Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  item  in  the  exports  is  the 
pig-iron  shipped  to  Marseilles  and  Rotterdam" — 2,815  tons. 
And  at  the  same  time  Mr.  Vice-Consul  Walton  had  reported 
from  Mariupol  as  follows :  ''  Some  50,000  tons  of  hematite  have 
lately  been  sold  to  the  north  of  Russia,  and  trial  shipments  have 
been  made  to  Germany,  France,  and  Belgium;  thus  not  only  is 
South  Russia  no  longer  a  customer  for  pig-iron  from  abroad, 
but  she  is  entering  the  market  as  a  supplier  of  this  commodity.** 
I  do  not  suggest,  of  course,  that  these  small  exports  of  iron  from 
Russia  necessarily  presage  an  important  new  development  of 
Russian  industry,  but  I  do  say  that  the  incident  has  its  signifi- 
cance, and  that  this  has  been  better  appreciated  by  the  old- 
fashioned  Consuls  in  this  case  than  by  the  modern  Commercial 
Agent.  And  I  think  that  the  facts,  if  Mr.  Cooke  had  known 
them,  deserved    some   more   balanced    comment,  for   an   iron- 

*  "Mineral  and  Metallurgical   Industries  of  Russia."     Diplomatic    and    Consular 
Reports,  Miscellaneous  Series,  No.  555.     Foreign  Office,  June,  1901. 


tn 


I, 

r:, 

h 


j^.iim.  .M  ,«», 


37'2 


AI.L     1  HK    RUSSIAS 


exporting    country    like    England,    than    "The    Russian    iron 
industry  has  no  market  across  the  frontier." 

Mr.   Cooke  says  that  "  Russia  became  the  playground  for 
universal  Bourse  speculation."     The  word  "  universal  "  is  too 
strong,  and  indeed  elsewhere  he  places  the  cap  where  it  fits. 
The  present  aspect  of  the  industrial  condition  of  Russia,  so  far 
as  foreign  investment  is  concerned,  is,  speaking  roughly,  the 
work    of    unscrupulous    Belgian    company-i)romoters,    or    per- 
haps more  correctly  speaking,  of  unscrupulous  company-pro- 
moters  working  in   Belgium   because   of  the  opportunities  af- 
forded  them   by    Belgian   law.     These   gentlemen   have   taken 
advantage  of  the  enthusiasm  in  Belgium  and  France  for  things 
Russian  to  tioat  company  after  company,  to  build  iron-works 
after  iron-works,  where  it  was  perfectly  evident  that  only  bank- 
ruptcy could  result.     Some  iron-works  had  no  ore  accessible, 
some  no  coal,  some  no  limestone.     The  nominal  capital  was  in 
every  case  enormous,  the  working  capital  absurdly  insufficient. 
The  promoters  placed  their  shares,  pocketed  the  huge  "  rake- 
off,"  and  are  now  turning  their  malevolent  attention  to  the  Far 
East,  while  the  unhappy  investors  in  their  Russian  companies 
w^ill  lose  almost  every  penny.     1  made  careful  inquiries  on  the 
spot,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  a  number  of  these  Belgian 
and  French  enterprises  were  nothing  better  than  swindles  from 
the   start.     Some   of   them,   as   M.   de   Witte    himself   has  just 
pointed  out,  with  nominal  capitals  of  millions  of  roubles,  began 
operations  without  working  capital,  and  even  in  debt.     "  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  foreign  industrial  enterprises  initiated  in  Southern 
Russia  during  the  last  decade  have  in  the  first  place  been  pro- 
moted exclusively  for  the  personal  aggrandisement  of  the  pro- 
moters."—Odessa   correspon('ent   of  the   Stamhinl   August   3, 
1901.     For  these  failures  Russia  is  unjustly  condemned.     She 
is  no  more  to  blame  for  them  than  England  is  to  blame  for  the 
shocking  record  of  liquidated  companies  on  the  Eondon  Stock 
Exchange.     As  Mr.  Cooke  himself  says,  "  Firmer  or  older-es- 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     373 

tablished  enterprises  even  in  the  metallurgical  industry,  keeping 
their  own  steady  course,  apart  from  the  wild  run  of  speculation, 
have  stood  their  ground." 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  Russia  has  suffered  a  financial  and 
economic  crisis  of  the  most  serious  kind.  But  is  she  alone  in 
this  misfortune?  Is  not  the  German  iron  industry  in  a  similar 
position?  Are  there  not  50,000  unemployed  in  Berlin?  Are 
not  German  workmen  being  transported  by  the  Government 
back  to  the  land?  Have  not  German  banks  collapsed  right  and 
left?  In  France,  too,  is  there  not  a  deficit  of  1 10,000,000  francs 
in  this  year's  budget?  Have  not  the  French  taxes  for  the  first 
ten  months  of  the  present  year  fallen  short  of  the  estimate  by 
90,000,000  francs?  Are  not  French  wine-growers  threatening 
to  plough  up  their  vineyards?  And  is  the  United  Kingdom 
wholly  without  anxiety  regarding  its  own  economic  outlook? 
If  Russian  national  securities  have  fallen,  what  about  Consols? 
Apart  from  the  injurious  effects  of  the  South  African  War,  these 
epochs  of  bad  trade  are  cyclic  and  depression  is  far  less  likely 
to  persist  in  Russia  than  in  countries  which  possess  neither  the 
vast  real  wealth  of  her  State  nor  the  boundless  natural  resources 
of  her  country.  For  notwithstanding  Russian  development  and 
production,  the  striking  figures  of  which  I  have  already  given, 
her  natural  wealth  is  as  yet  hardly  touched.  Mr.  Cooke  says, 
in  the  Report  already  quoted : 

''  Not  that  there  is  not  incalculable  wealth,  more  especially 
mineral,  in  the  vast  dominions  of  the  Russian  Empire.  The 
natural  resources  of  the  country,  as  is  w-ell  known,  are  indeed 
enormous.  The  future,  with  such  assets  to  realise,  cannot  but 
be  of  the  most  promising." 

American  authorities  are  even  more  enthusiastic.  Mr.  Vice- 
Consul-General  Hanauer  says :  "  The  vast  Empire  offers  the 
best  and  most  profitable  field  for  our  promoters  of  railway, 
electric,  and  other  enterprises,  for  the  construction  of  water- 
works and  drainage  systems,  building  streets  and  canals,  works 


374 


ALL    THE    RUSSL-\S 


V         ' 


in  iron,  making  dry-docks  and  harbours,  and  opening  mines. 
.  I  would  recommend  my  countrymen  to  '  go  East,'  and 
employ  their  talent,  time,  money,  and  energy  in  Russia,  which 
will  return  them  ample  compensation."*  And  IMr.  Alexander 
Hume  Ford,  an  engineering  expert,  after  a  journey  of  investi- 
gation in  Russia  for  an  important  American  technical  review, 
concluded  as  follows:  "In  fact,  Russia  seems  to  stand  to-day 
where  America  stood  half  a  century  ago,  on  the  threshold  of 
an  industrial  prosperity  and  development  which  must  soon  awe 
the  world  by  its  rapid  and  stupendous  growth.  It  is  here  that 
the  Goulds,  Rockefellers,  Huntingtons,  Carnegies,  and  Flag- 
lers  of  the  future  will  spring  up  and  become  all-powerful." f  I 
myself  have  certainly  become  a  convinced  believer  in  the  future 
industrial  development  of  Russia,  and  in  this  development  for- 
eign capital,  which  will  be  welcomed  and  will  receive  perfectly 
fair  treatment,  judiciously  placed,  after  careful  examination  and 
without  inflation  of  values — placed,  that  is,  for  investment  and 
not  for  speculation,  should — on  one  condition — play  a  large  and 
a  very  profitable  j)art. 

The  directions  in  which  foreign  capital  has  been  employed 
in  Russia,  or  may  be,  are  very  numerous  indeed.  The  cotton- 
spinning  mills  of  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg  are  the  first  ex- 
ample that  comes  to  mind,  and  their  profits  in  the  past  have  been 
enormous — reaching  sometimes  fifty  per  cent,  and  even  more. 
The  iron  industry  of  to-day  is  largely  a  result  of  foreign  en- 
terprise, and  is  certain  of  enormous  development  in  the  future. 
A  commission  of  four  experts,  including  Professor  Mendele- 
yef,  the  celebrated  chemist,  appointed  by  the  Tsar  in  1899, 
reported  that  there  are  2,400,000,000  tons  of  iron-ore  in  the 
Urals  alone — ten  million  tons  of  pig-iron  a  year  for  a  hundred 
years. 

*  Report  from  IVankfort,  June  20,   1899. 

t  EN^i^nnc-c-rin^^-  M>r^'i!zinc\  April.   19OI,  page  4I. 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     375 

The  petroleum  industry  at  Baku  is  almost  entirely  the  work 
and  the  capital  of  foreigners,  led  by  the  great  names  of  Roths- 
child and  Nobel.  Last  year  the  Russian  output  of  petroleum 
was  greater  than  that  of  the  United  States,  it  is  increasing,  and 
important  new  fields  are  certain  of  discovery.  Such  a  produc- 
tion in  so  short  a  time,  would  have  been  impossible  unless 
foreign  capital  and  wise  and  generous  Russian  regulations  had 
worked  hand  in  hand. 

During  the  ten  years  1891 — 1900  Russia  produced  eleven 
and  a  half  milHon  ounces  of  fine  gold.  During  the  last  four 
years  the  production  has  fallen  off  somewhat,  but  it  is  beyond 
question  that  there  are  valuable  deposits  still  untouched  in  Si- 
beria, and  that  under  a  more  enlightened  ofificial  regime  than 
that  at  present  in  force  foreign  enterprise  would  be  able  to  ex- 
ploit them.  The  world  has  yet  to  learn,  too,  of  the  gold-fields 
of  enormous  wealth  of  which  Russia  has — by  means  also  unap- 
preciated yet — become  possessed. 

Russia  has  vast  deposits  of  coal,  but  for  some  reason  or 
other  neither  Russians  nor  foreigners  are  working  them  to  any 
great  extent.  In  vain  has  M.  de  Witte  urged  Russian  capitalists 
and  coal-owners  to  greater  efforts  in  this  direction.  He  has 
just  sent  the  following  sarcastic  telegram  to  the  IMining  Con- 
gress sitting  at  Kharkor:  ''  The  owners  of  iron  works  and  coal 
mines  are  continually  complaining  of  the  dif^culty  of  selling 
their  products,  and  of  the  consequent  restriction  of  the  output. 
However,  the  imports  of  these  products  during  the  current  year 
up  to  October  ist  amounted  to  106,000  tons  for  cast  iron  and 
cast  steel,  to  54,000  tons  for  machines  made  of  these  materials, 
and  to  2,970,000  tons  for  coal.  In  view  of  the  very  high  customs 
duties  imposed  for  the  protection  of  home  industries,  I  ask  the 
Congress  how  it  is  to  be  explained  that  people  can  speak  of  a 
difficult  situation  in  the  face  of  such  considerable  imports  of 
products  which  might  be  supplied  by  Russian  industry."     And 


376 


ALL    TFIL    RLSSIAS 


a  contract  for  60,000  tons  of  coal  for  immediate  delivery,  at 
$12.24  a  ton,  is  announced  from  New  York  as  I  write.  In  the 
great  Donetz  coal  basin  there  is,  I  am  sure,  an  important  open- 
ing for  foreign  enterprise,  especially  as  all  Russian  properties 
can  be  purchased  cheaply  for  cash  just  now. 

The  manganese  industry  of  the  Caucasus  offers,  so  far  as  I 
am  able  to  judge,  a  remarkable  opportunity  for  judicious  invest- 
ment of  a  certain  kind,  and,  indeed,  the  mineral  development  of 
the  whole  Caucasus  district  will  probably  astonish  the  world 
some  day.  As  for  the  Urals,  their  extraordinary  richness  in 
minerals  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  but  few  people 
realise  what  openings  they  present  for  foreign  capital.  Central 
Asia  is  as  yet  an  unknown  land  to  engineers  and  capitalists,  but 
the  opportunities  there  for  a  combination  of  the  two — and  I 
speak  from  careful  examination  on  the  spot — are  great,  and 
cannot  fail  to  be  seized  before  long. 

The  forests  of  Russia,  with  the  price  of  timber  steadily  rising 
and  the  demand  for  wood-pulp  always  increasing,  also  ofYer  a 
further  opportunity,  and  joinery  mills,  since  Russian  workmen 
are  exceptionally  clever  carpenters,  should  be  successful.  The 
manufacture  of  hardware,  linoleum,  and  many  small  objects  now 
imported  from  Germany,  should  pay  handsomely.  Already  an 
important  Shef^eld  firm  is  preparing  to  manufacture  files  and 
tools  in  Russia.*     And  there  are  many  openings  for  imported 

*  I  quote  the  following  interesting  testimony  from  the  Odessa  correspondent  of  the 
Standard :  "  Lodz,  known  now  as  the  Russian  or  Polish  Manchester,  is  a  prominent 
example  of  successful  foreign  industrial  enterprise.  F'ifteen  years  ago  it  was  a  place 
of  some  ten  or  twelve  thousand  inhabitants;  its  population,  wholly  industrial,  now 
numbers  close  upon  four  hundred  thousand.  In  order  to  escape  the  prohibitively  high 
Russian  duties,  and  still  push  their  trades  in  the  Russian  markets,  a  host  of  German, 
Austrian,  Belgian,  and  French  manufacturers  have,  so  to  say,  brought  their  mills  and 
factories  over  the  Russian  frontier,  and,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  they  are  all  flour- 
ishing. As,  generally  speaking,  all  Ikitish  manufactures  have  an  exceptionally  high 
reputation  in  this  country,  there  is  no  reason  why  British  manufacturers  should  not 
start  operations  in  Russia  with  even  greater  success  than  that  which  has  so  abundantly 
crowned  the  enterprise  of  the  Lodz  cosmopolitans." 


■ 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     377 

British  goods,  if  uitelligently  brought  before  the  consum- 
ers.* 

This  summary  by  no  means  exhausts  the  directions  m  which 

M.  de  Witte's  policy  of  educational  protection  invites  foreign 
capital  to  come  and  establish  a  healthy  competition  with  men 
and  means  in  Russia.  So  far  only  a  few  capitahsts  have  dis- 
covered Russia  and  her  economic  regime;  they  are  chiefly  Eng- 
lishmen  and    Belgians,    with    comparatively    few    French    and 

German  companies. 

Not  that  joint-stock  enterprise  does  not  already  exist  on  a 
large  scale,  for  of  Russian  companies  no  fewer  than  580  declared 
a  dividend  during  the  first  nine  months  of  1901,  their  total 
nominal  capital  being  £105,000,000,  and  their  average  di-idend 
no  less  than  10.  i  per  cent.  But  it  may  be  regarded  as  certain 
that  unless  some  international  catastrophe  should  interrupt 
peaceful  relations,  men  and  associations  with  large  sums  of 
money  to  invest  will  turn  their  attention  and  their  talents  more 
and  more  toward  Russia. 

After  so  many  general  considerations  it  may  interest  the 
reader  to  see  a  foreign  company  in  Russia  actually  at  work.  I 
will  therefore  try  to  picture  for  him  the  best  I  saw. 

In  the  south  of  Russia  there  is  a  large  flourishing  town, 

♦  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  copy  here  the  printed  letter  which  Captain  Murray, 
the  energetic  British  Consul-General  at  Warsaw,  has  prepared  to  send  to  his  many 
unintelligent  British  correspondents  : 

-I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  the  price-list  which  you  have  been  good 
enough  to  send  me,  but  of  which  I  regret  that  I  am  unable  to  make  any  use,  as  it  is  m 
English,  as  are  also  the  details  and  prices  given  in  it.  .     -      \, 

"To  bring  goods  to  the  notice  of  buyers  in  this  country  price-lists  must  be  m  the 
Russian.  Polish,  or  German  languages,  and  all  dimensions  and  prices  must  be  m 
Russian  weights,  measures,  and  money,  and  moreover,  the  prices  given  should  be 
those  at  which  the  goods  can  be  obtained  from  your  agents  in  Russia,  or  if  Y^"  j^^^'^ 
no  regular  agents,  full  details  should  be  given  as  to  probable  cost  of  freight,  duty, 
etc.,  to  give  the  buyer  some  idea  of  what  the  goods  will  cost  him  if  he  imports  them 
himself." 


'J 


37^ 


ALL     IFLK    RUSSIAS 


owned  entirely  1)y  Enj^Hshinen,  the  scat  of  a  great  and  pros- 
perous industry,  created  by  Englislniien,  the  most  striking 
example  of  how  foreign  enterprises,  wisely  conducted  under 
Russian  laws,  may  thrive  in  l^ussia.  Few  people  know  of  this, 
nor  did  I  until  1  began  to  investigate  the  conditions  attaching 
to  foreign  investments  in  Russia  and  to  look  for  a  typical  case 
to  describe.  Yet  such  is  the  town  of  Usofka,  the  site  of  the  New 
Russia  Company  Ltd.  You  will  not,  by  the  way,  find  its  shares 
in  the  list  of  quotations;  they  are  all  privately  held,  and  nobody 
who  has  any  would  l)e  likely  to  sell. 

The  founder  of  Usofka  w^as  the  late  John  Hughes,  the  son 
of  a  blacksmith  of  Merthyr.  He  was  at  one  time  manager  of  the 
Millwall  Iron-works,  on  the  Thames;  he  built  the  Plymouth 
Breakw^ater  Fort;  and  he  made  his  first  acquaintance  with  Russia 
by  building  the  Constantine  Fort  at  Kronstadt  in  1864.  His 
friendship  with  Todleben,  the  defender  of  Sevastopol  and  the 
saviour  of  the  situation  before  Plevna,  had  something  to  do  with 
his  interest  in  Russia.  Under  Imperial  protection  he  was  sent 
to  the  south  to  search  for  coal.  He  found  it,  and  the  New 
Russia  Company  is  the  outcome.  Now  the  management  of  the 
great  concern  is  in  the  hands  of  his  sons,  and  to  them  1  have 
to  express  my  warm  thanks  for  hospitality  and  most  interesting 
opportunities  of  inspection. 

The  railway  station  of  Usovo  and  the  town  of  Usofka  are 
both  named  after  John  Hughes.  They  lie  in  the  extreme  south 
of  Russia,  just  north  of  the  Sea  of  Azov  and  about  a  third  of 
the  way  from  Rostov  to  Odessa.  IMuch  thumbing  of  the  time- 
table is  necessary  to  get  there.  As  I  came  up  the  Black  Sea 
from  Batum.  I  left  the  steamer  at  Novorossisk  (where  there  is 
the  largest  grain  elevator  in  the  world)  and  w^ent  by  train  to 
Rostov.  Thence  to  Khartsisk,  and  thence  again  to  Yasinova- 
taya — fairly  unknown  country,  as  you  see.  There  at  dusk  a 
phaeton  and  dashing  pair  awaited  me,  and   an  eighteen-verst 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     379 

drive,  quickly  covered,  across  the  steppe,  brought  me  to  my 
destination.  As  I  entered  the  house  a  valse  of  Chopin  was  being 
plaved  on  the  piano.  ^  You  will  find  us  in  the  billiard-room, 
when  vou  have  dressed,"  said  my  host.  It  seemed  Uke  a  dream, 
so  much  civilisation,  all  of  a  sudden,  after  months  spent  in  pro- 
vincial Russia,  in  Siberia,  and  in  Central  Asia. 

The  New  Russia  Company's  estate,  owned,  not  leased,  ex- 
tends  to  some  60,000  acres.     Half  of  this  is  coal-bearing  land, 
and  one-half  of  this  half  shows  enough  coal  to  last  the  company 
for  two  hundred  years.    In  fact,  the  company  sells  coal,  and  no 
iron-works  would  do  this  unless  there  was  plenty  to  spare. 
Some  distance  away  there  are  2,700  acres  of  limestone  property. 
The  supply  of  iron  comes  from  the  hematite  mines  of  Krivei- 
rog,  where  the  ore  averages  from  fifty-eight  to  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  metallic  iron.    These  mines,  of  which  the  New  Russia 
Company's  share  is  2,500  acres,  are  about  three  hundred  miles 
away.     There  is  enough  ore  in  sight  to  last  the  company  for 
from  fifteen  to  twenty  years.    After  that  a  fresh  supply  must  be 
found.     Its  source  is  hardly  a  secret. 

The  manufacturing  side  of  Usofka  is  like  a  huge  iron-works 
anywhere  else— a  forest  of  chimneys,  belching  forth  smoke  and 
steam;  a  row  of  blast-furnaces,  clouding  the  day  and  illuminat- 
ing the  night;  great  stretches  of  coke  ovens;  mountains  of  slag; 
acres  of  workshops;  miles  of  railway  with  banging  trucks  and 
shrieking  engines— the  whole  familiar  industrial  inferno.     Be- 
side it  are  two  of  the  coUiery  pit-heads,  and  adjoining  it  on  the 
other  side  is. the  tow^n.    This  has  no  resemblance  to  a  Russian 
provincial  town;  it  is  regularly  laid  out,  its  houses  are  solidly 
built  and  neatly  kept,  indeed  many  of  them  are  luxurious;  there 
is  a  whole  street  of  capital  shops,  a  co-operative  store,  a  public 
garden,  a  branch  of  the  Imperial  Bank,  a  Cossack  barrack.    The 
streets  are  numbered  on  the  American  plan,   and  are  called 
''  Lines  "—there  are  fifty  "  Lines,"  if  I  remember  aright.     The 
whole  place,  as  a  glance  shows,  is  prosperous  and  well  gov- 


I 


380 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


erned.  It  has  no  fewer  than  30,000  inhabitants,  and  no  other 
raison  d'etre  than  the  New  Russia  Company,  Ltd.  Close  the 
iron-works,  and  next  week  this  town,  as  big  as  Colchester  or 
Topeka,  would  be  deserted. 

The  pay-sheet  of  Usofka  contains  12,000  men,  and  £50,000 
a  month  is  paid  in  wages.  This  gives  some  idea  of  the  scale  of 
the  company's  operations,  and  of  the  benefit  to  Russia  which 
this  foreign  enterprise  confers.  But  the  figures  of  output  are 
perhaps  even  more  informative.  There  are  six  large  blast- 
furnaces, five  working,  and  one  kept  in  reserve.  These  are 
worked  with  what  I  believe  is  called  a  "  ten-pound  pillar."  In 
1899  the  output  of  pig-iron  was  335,000  tons.  For  the  produc- 
tion of  steel  there  are  ten  open-hearth  furnaces  (into  which  the 
metal  is  carried  hot — an  improvement,  unless  I  am  mistaken, 
upon  English  methods)  and  two  Bessemer  converters.  During 
the  year  preceding  my  visit  50,000  tons  of  steel  billets  were 
produced.  The  rolling-mills,  in  which  I  noticed  that  an  electric 
trolley  carried  the  red-hot  ingots  from  one  rolling-table  to  an- 
other— a  very  useful  little  time-saver  introduced  locally — turned 
out  last  year  150,000  tons  of  rails.  Besides  this,  10,000  tons  of 
''  merchant  iron  "  and  8,000  tons  of  ''  Spiegeleisen  "  were  pro- 
duced and  sold.  From  the  company's  coal  mines,  six  in  all, 
650,000  tons  were  lifted,  of  which  about  30,000  tons  were  sold. 
The  company  made  and  used  350,000  tons  of  coke,  and  bought 
more  besides,  and  it  raised  from  its  own  mines  at  Krivei-rog 
500,000  tons  of  iron  ore.  One  other  interesting  item  is  that 
the  company  has  a  large  farm  adjoining  the  town,  for  the  pro- 
duction of  vegetables  and  forage,  and  that  it  ploughs  every  year 
some  8,000  acres  of  land. 

To  complete  the  appreciation  of  this  great  industrial  enter- 
prise, and  its  significance  for  Russia,  two  other  facts  should  be 
borne  in  mind:  first,  that  in  1870  there  were  only  a  few  huts  on 
the  steppe  where  now  this  busy  town  thrives;  and  second,  that 
the  whole  of  the  output  during  these  thirty  years   has  been 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     381 

used  in   Russia,  and  not  a  yard  or  a  pound  sent  to  any  other 

country. 

The  workmen  at  a  Russian  place  Hke  this  present  many 
contrasts  with  labour  elsewhere.     Originally  they  were  all  from 
the  land,  attracted  for  a  time  by  the  higher  wages,  or  actually 
driven  from  home  by  poverty.     They  worked  in  the  mill  for  a 
few  months  and  then  took  their  savings  back  to  the  village 
home      Many  of  them  are  still  of  this  class,  but  now  these  stay 
as  a  rule  for  three  or  four  years,  and  there  has  in  addition  grown 
up  a  regular  working  class,  dissociated  forever  from  the  soil. 
The  growth  of  this  proletariat  is  one  of  the  most  striking  devel- 
opments in  modern  Russia,  and  in  time  will  undoubtedly  trans- 
form many  old  conditions.    Their  wages  are  both  low  and  high 
—low  in  actual  money,  high  because  the  labour  is  inefficient. 
The  lowest  rate  is  80  kopecks,  about  is.  Sd.  or  forty  cents,  a  day, 
and  this  rises,  with  the  skill  and  responsibility  of  the  recipient, 
until  rollers  and  fitters  and  furnace-men  draw  from  three  and 
a  half  to  four  roubles,  say  7s.  6d.  to  8^.  6a^.— $1.75  to  $2— a  day. 
Moreover,  any  factory  in  Russia  is  handicapped  by  the  great 
number  of  saints'  days  and  Imperial  fete-days,  when  work  ceases 
by  official  order.     In  fact  the  working-days  only  average  about 
twenty-one  a  month.     The  character  of  the  labourers  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that  they  occasionally  take  a  nap  upon  the 
railway  line!     I  myself  saw  a  man  stretched  on  his  face  fast 
asleep  on  the  iron  plates  which  form  the  roof  of  a  blast-furnace, 
with  his  head  a  few  inches  from  a  shaft  up  which  at  any  moment 
poisonous  gases  might  burst. 

Foreign  enterprises  in  Russia  usually  either  fail  or  pay  what 
would  be  regarded  in  England,  at  any  rate,  as  very  large  divi- 
dends; and  if  they  fail  it  is  generally  from  their  own  fault.  But 
they  have  to  face  a  good  many  conditions  which  an  English  or 
American  employer  would  consider  intolerable  at  home.  For 
instance,  the  precautions  they  have  to  take  against  accidents  are 
infinite,  and  if  a  man  is  killed  the  poHce  procedure  which  follows 


I 


382 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


is  a  perfect  inquisition.  For  example,  the  foreign  head  of  the 
department  in  which  the  victim  worked  cannot  leave  the 
country  until  a  verdict  is  reached  and  penalties  inflicted,  and 
the  various  trials  and  inquiries  may  last  a  year  or  more.  Again, 
in  Russia  the  State  imposes  upon  private  enterprise  obligations 
which  elsewhere  it  discharges  itself.  At  Usofka,  since  I  am 
taking  this  as  a  typical  business,  the  company  has  to  support 
schools  in  which  are  eight  hundred  scholars;  a  hospital,  in 
which  there  are  one  hundred  l)eds  and  six  doctors;  a  force  of 
police  consisting  of  three  head  constables,  four  sub-constables, 
and  seventy-six  men;  and  even  to  make  a  contribution  to  the 
guard  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  mounted  Cossacks  quartered  in 
the  town. 

Besides  these  obligations,  the  company  has  two  Russian 
taxes  to  pay.  First,  the  zcmstvo  taxes — call  them  rates.  These 
amount  to  £10,000.  Second,  a  new  cumulative  tax  on  general 
profits,  and,  as  the  New  Russia  Company  had  paid  a  dividend 
of  fifty  per  cent.,  this  tax  was  ten  per  cent.  Third,  as  this  is  an 
English  company,  there  is  the  income  tax  at  home. 

But  even  yet  I  have  not  touched  upon  the  severest  handicap 
of  all.  This  can  only  be  explained  rather  technically.  Iron- 
masters will  understand  it,  and  others  must  believe  that  it  is 
far  harder  than  exists  elsewhere  in  the  world.  I  allude  to  the 
tests  which  the  material  supplied  to  Government,  of  course  a 
customer  much  larger  than  all  the  rest  put  together  and  doubled, 
has  to  pass  before  it  is  accepted. 

Take  rails,  for  instance,  very  much  the  most  important  item. 
First,  a  35-foot  rail  must  not  vary  in  length  more  than  three 
millimetres  from  the  standard.  Second,  a  5-foot  rail,  previously 
frozen,  placed  upon  supports  3  feet  apart,  receives  two  blows 
from  a  half-ton  ''  monkey,"  falling  from  a  height  of  from  8|  to 
9i  feet  according  to  the  weight  of  the  rail,  and  must  not  break 
or  show  any  defect.  Third,  after  a  deflection  test  of  from  14  to 
17  tons  pressure  the  rail  must  not  show  a  permanent  *'  set  "  of 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     383 

more  than  .75  millimetre.  Fourth,  a  tensile  strain  of  65  kilos. 
to  the  square  millimetre  (about  40  tons  to  the  square  inch)  must 
not  produce  an  elongation  of  more  than  six  per  cent.  And  fifth, 
the  figure  produced  by  this  strain,  added  to  the  elongation  and 
multiplied  by  2,  must  reach  eighty-two.  I  am  assured  that  a 
British  or  American  railmaker  would  refuse  a  contract  requiring 
these  tests,  which  at  Usofka  are  scrupulously  applied  by  a  com- 
mittee of  Russian  engineers. 

Still  I  have  not  done  with  the  hard  side.  After  all  these 
conditions,  obligations,  taxes,  and  tests,  it  might  be  thought 
that  the  company  could  put  its  own  price  upon  its  output.  But 
it  is  not  the  company  which  fixes  the  price — the  Minister  of 
Finance  fixes  it  for  it.  When  I  was  at  Usofka  the  Government 
was  giving  its  orders  for  steel  rails  at  the  price  of  one  rouble 
ten  kopecks  a  poud,  which  I  work  out  as  the  equivalent  of  £7  4?. 
per  ton.  A  year  previously  the  price  was  1.35  roubles.  The 
Government  gives  its  order  and  you  take  it  or  leave  it. 

Poor  foreign  enterprise  in  Russia !  Well,  not  exactly.  Mr. 
Hughes  went  off  to  look  for  a  fresh  cue  when  I  hinted  a  curi- 
osity concerning  the  dividends  of  the  New  Russia  Company, 
but  I  had  a  suspicion  that  if  anybody  could  buy  its  shares  at 
many  times  their  par  value  he  would  think  .himself  lucky.  I 
afterward  looked  up  these  dividends  for  the  last  ten  years  and 
found  them  to  be  as  follows:  Nineteen  per  cent.,  sixteen  per 
cent.,  twenty-eight  per  cent.,  thirty  per  cent.,  twenty-four  per 
cent.,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  per  cent.,  fifteen  per  cent., 
twenty  per  cent.,  twenty-five  per  cent.,  twenty  per  cent.  And 
at  one  point  in  this  pleasing  record  the  share  capital  was 
doubled !  Indeed  a  list  of  the  concerns  working  in  Russia,  with 
foreign  capital,  which  have  paid  between  fifteen  and  fifty  per 
cent,  dividend  would  make  the  foreign  investor's  mouth  water. 

In  conclusion,  since  I  have  described  foreign  enterprise  in 
Russia  as  typified  in  this  great  English  business,  I  must  add  one 
word  of  reservation.    The  New  Russia  Company  was  founded 


*  .  *  ■  »- 


*J^      .'      '  ■:,»ir"^-^  ■•> 


382 


ALL    THE    RLSSIAS 


is  a  perfect  inquisition.  For  example,  tlie  foreign  head  of  the 
department  in  which  tlie  victim  worked  cannot  leave  the 
country  until  a  verdict  is  reached  and  penalties  indicted,  and 
the  various  trials  and  inquiries  may  last  a  year  or  more.  Again, 
in  Russia  the  State  imposes  upon  private  enterprise  obligations 
which  elsewhere  it  discharges  itself.  At  L\sofka.  since  I  am 
taking  this  as  a  typical  business,  the  company  has  to  support 
schools  in  which  are  eight  hundred  scholars;  a  hospital,  in 
which  there  are  one  hundred  beds  and  six  doctors;  a  force  of 
police  consisting  of  three  head  constables,  four  sub-constables, 
and  seventy-six  men;  and  even  to  make  a  contribution  to  the 
guard  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  mounted  Cossacks  quartered  in 
the  town. 

Besides  these  obligations,  the  company  has  two  Russian 
taxes  to  pay.  First,  the  zcmstvo  taxes— call  them  rates.  These 
amount  to  £10,000.  Second,  a  new  cumulative  tax  on  general 
profits,  and,  as  the  New  Russia  Company  had  paid  a  dividend 
of  fifty  per  cent.,  this  tax  was  ten  per  cent.  Third,  as  this  is  an 
English  company,  there  is  the  income  tax  at  home. 

But  even  yet  I  have  not  touched  upon  the  severest  handicap 
of  all.  This  can  only  be  explained  rather  technicallv.  Iron- 
masters will  understand  it,  and  others  must  believe  that  it  is 
far  harder  than  exists  elsewhere  in  the  world.  I  allude  to  the 
tests  which  the  material  supplied  to  Government,  of  course  a 
customer  much  larger  than  all  the  rest  put  together  and  doubled, 
has  to  pass  before  it  is  accepted. 

Take  rails,  for  instance,  very  much  the  most  important  item. 
First,  a  3S-foot  rail  must  not  vary  in  length  more  than  three 
millimetres  from  the  standard.  Second,  a  S-foot  rail,  previously 
frozen,  placed  upon  supports  3  feet  apart,  receives  tw^o  blows 
from  a  half-ton  ''  monkey,"  falling  from  a  height  of  from  8|  to 
9i  feet  according  to  the  weight  of  the  rail,  and  must  not  break 
or  show  any  defect.  Third,  after  a  deflection  test  of  from  14  to 
17  tons  pressure  the  rail  must  not  show  a  permanent  ''  set  "  of 


rl:l 


FINANCE,  COMMERCE,  AND   INDUSTRY     383 

more  than  .75  millimetre.  Fourth,  a  tensile  strain  of  65  kilos, 
to  the  square  millimetre  (about  40  tons  to  the  square  inch)  must 
not  produce  an  elongation  of  more  than  six  per  cent.  And  fifth, 
the  figure  produced  by  this  strain,  added  to  the  elongation  and 
multiplied  by  2,  must  reach  eighty-two.  I  am  assured  that  a 
British  or  American  railmaker  would  refuse  a  contract  requiring 
these  tests,  which  at  Usofka  are  scrupulously  applied  by  a  com- 
mittee of  Russian  engineers. 

Still  I  have  not  done  with  the  hard  side.  After  all  these 
conditions,  obligations,  taxes,  and  tests,  it  might  be  thought 
that  the  company  could  put  its  own  price  upon  its  output.  But 
it  is  not  the  company  which  fixes  the  price — the  Minister  of 
Finance  fixes  it  for  it.  When  I  was  at  L^sofka  the  Government 
was  giving  its  orders  for  steel  rails  at  the  price  of  one  rouble 
ten  kopecks  a  poud,  which  I  work  out  as  the  equivalent  of  £7  4^. 
per  ton.  A  year  previously  the  price  was  1.35  roubles.  The 
Government  gives  its  order  and  you  take  it  or  leave  it. 

Poor  foreign  enterprise  in  Russia !  Well,  not  exactly.  Mr. 
Hughes  went  ofY  to  look  for  a  fresh  cue  when  I  hinted  a  curi- 
osity concerning  the  dividends  of  the  New^  Russia  Company,, 
but  I  had  a  suspicion  that  if  anybody  could  buy  its  shares  at 
many  times  their  par  value  he  would  think  himself  lucky.  I 
afterward  looked  up  these  dividends  for  the  last  ten  years  and 
found  them  to  be  as  follows:  Nineteen  per  cent.,  sixteen  per 
cent.,  twenty-eight  per  cent.,  thirty  per  cent.,  twenty-four  per 
cent.,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  per  cent.,  fifteen  per  cent., 
twenty  per  cent.,  twenty-five  per  cent.,  tw'enty  per  cent.  And 
at  one  point  in  this  pleasing  record  the  share  capital  was 
doubled !  Indeed  a  list  of  the  concerns  w^orking  in  Russia,  with 
foreign  capital,  which  have  paid  between  fifteen  and  fifty  per 
cent,  dividend  would  make  the  foreign  investor's  mouth  water. 

In  conclusion,  since  I  have  described  foreign  enterprise  in 
Russia  as  typified  in  this  great  English  business,  I  must  add  one 
word  of  reservation.     The  New  Russia  Company  was  founded 


384 


ALL    IHl',    RLSSLAS 


'(' 


W' 


when  foreign  capital  was  admitted  under  easier  conditions  than 
exist  nowadays,  for  to-day  the  Government  would  not  sell  such 
properties  outrii^ht,  as  it  did  in  1S70.  ^Moreover,  John  Hughes, 
who  founded  it,  had  the  foresight  of  a  conniiercial  ]*rometheus. 
But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  for  the  foreign  ca{)italist,  if 
he  knows  where  and  iiow  to  go  to  work,  there  are  op|)ortunities 
to-day  as  promising  as  those  whic'i  Mr.  Hughes  foresaw  and 
utilised  thirty  years  ago. 


As  so  much  ignorance  prevails  about  Russia,  and  the  general 
opinion  of  the  world  takes  an  unfavourable  and  unjust  view  of 
her  economic  position  and  her  connnercial  possibilities,  I  have 
naturally  been  led  to  give  prominence  to  facts  favourable  to  her 
and  attractive  to  others.    But  I  would  not  be  thought  to  suggest 
that  fortunes  are  to  be  picked  up  in  Russia  more  than  elsewhere, 
or  that  it  is  sufficient  merely  to  bring  capital  into  the  country  to 
reap  an  immediate  and   rich  pecuniary  harvest.      Far  from  it. 
In  Russia,  as  elsewhere,  plenty  of  people  are  waiting  to  sell  vou 
the  worthless  thing  at  the  top  price.     Moreover,  the  conditions 
of  Russian  industrial  and  commercial  life  are  peculiar,  and  no 
enterprise  can  succeed  which  does  not  take  them  closely  into 
account.     Every  country  presents  its  own  particular  difficulties, 
and  Russia  at  least  as  many  as  any  other.     There  is  here  a  way 
to  do  things,  and  a  way  not  to  do  them.     The  openings  for  for- 
eign capital  are  naturally  known  to  comparatively  few.     More- 
over,  if  the  present  policy  of  the   State  were  to   change   its 
direction  or  lose  its  vigour,  all  the  future  relations  of  Russia 
and  foreigners  would   be  different.      Foreign   faith  in    Russian 
economic  freedom  is  as  yet  a  tender  plant,  and  it  might  easily 
be  blighted.     So  far,  however,   Russia's  record  is  a  good  one. 
Nobody  ihas  ever  lost  a  farthing  by  trusting  the  Russian  State. 
The  official  conditions  of  tlie  investment  of  foreign  capital  are 
more  liberal  than  those  of  the  United  States,  and  the  official  atti- 


FINANCK,  COMMERCE,  AND  INDUSTRY     385 

tude  is  one  of  sympathy  and  intelligence.*  And  so  long  as  his 
Majesty  Nicholas  II.  rules  over  All  the  Russias,  and  ]\I.  de  Witte 
is  his  Minister  of  Finance,  or  the  successors  to  Tsar  and  ]Min- 
ister  are  equally  far-seeing  and  wise-minded,  there  need  be  no 
fear  that  these  conditions  and  this  attitude  will  be  altered.  In- 
deed, among  the  many  reasons  Russia  has  for  substantial  grati- 
tude toward  her  present  Tsar,  the  fact  that  he  should  so  clearly 
perceive  M.  de  Witte's  patriotic  genius  and  firmly  uphold  him 
against  his  many  enemies,  constitutes  by  no  means  the  least. 

In  conclusion,  however,  I  must  pen  one  word  of  frank  and 
serious  warning.  I  have  previously  expressed  the  belief  that 
foreign  capital  will  play  a  large  and  a  profitable  part  in  Russian 
industrial  development — on  one  condition.  That  condition  is 
if  greater  official  expedition  and  more  business-like  meth- 
ods— the  methods  of  the  western  world,  in  fact — are  employed 
in  dealing  with  the  foreign  investor.  At  present  the  weari- 
some delay  often  experienced  in  conducting  negotiations  with 
the  Russian  authorities  is  a  most  serious  obstacle.  Foreign 
capital  is  ardently  desired;  the  greatest  intelligence  is  shown 
in  examining  any  proposal;  if  the  latter  is  found  good,  official 
promises  of  help  are  freely  and  sincerely  given;  and  then  the 
foreigner  believes  that  he  is  about  to  accomplish  something. 
Great  is  his  disappointment.  Delay  after  delay,  for  no  conceiv- 
able cause,  supervenes;  months  pass,  and  he  is  not  one  step 
nearer  his  goal;  a  definite  conclusion  of  any  kind  seems  the  one 
thing  he  cannot  obtain.  Not  seldom  he  abandons  his  enterprise 
in  despair,  and  goes  away  with  his  money  and  his  indignation. 
All  this,  so  far  as  it  is  not  temperamental  in  the  Russian,  is  due 

*  The  following  paragraph  occurs  in  a  letter  recently  addressed  officially  to  the 
Tifues  by  M.  Tatistcheff,  the  representative  of  the  Ministry  of  Finance  in  London  : 
"The  Imperial  Government,  far  from  putting  obstacles  in  the  way  of  foreign,  and  es- 
pecially British,  investments  in  Russian  commercial  and  industrial  enterprises,  is,  on 
the  contrary,  in  every  way  disposed  to  encourage  and  favour  and  to  authorise  to 
operate  in  Russia  those  companies  which  are  based  on  sound  commercial  principles 
and  solid  capital  being  able  by  their  financial  organisation  to  guarantee  the  successfully 
carrying  out  of  their  undertakings." 


<  '.  .'       "  ■     k      »,.»,.  t     -  ,  j^ 


■■*^'  -  •  iA,-<l 


386 


ALL    THI-:    RUSSLAS 


[l 

1 


f) , 


II, 


U' 


■  l!   • 

.'t 


cliielly  to  two  causes:  first,  the  \er}-  few  officials  who  have 
authoritv  rcallv  to  conclude  anvthini»'  and  lav  it  before  the  Tsar 
are  overwhelmed  with  work,  always  lon<;'  in  arrear;  and  second, 
even  when  one  of  these  is  anxious  to  expedite  matters,  every 
individual  of  a  small  army  of  subordinate  functionaries  is  able 
to  interpose  objection  after  ol)jection,  and  to  heap  technicality 
upon  technicality  in  the  way.  If  these  obstacles  are  removed, 
there  is  plenty  of  foreign  capital  awaiting  investment  in  Russia. 
If  not,  it  will  go  elsewhere. 

POSTSCRH'T. — Since  this  chapter  was  in  type  M.  de  Witte's  Report  to  the  Emperor 
on  the  Budget  for  1902  has  been  issued.  It  is  a  State  document  of  great  interest,  re- 
markable for  the  frankness  with  which  the  Minister  of  Finance  states  and  discusses 
the  depressed  condition  of  Russian  agricuUure  and  industry.  It  contains  nothing 
calling  for  any  modification  of  the  views  expressed  in  this  chapter — on  the  contrary, 
it  strongly  confirms  them.     A  few  of  its  statistics  may  be  briefly  given. 

The  ordinary  and  extraordinary  revenue  for  1902  falls  short  of  the  same  two  classes 
of  expenditure  by  144  million  roubles  (about  ;^l5,ooo,ooo) — a  sum  which  the  "free 
balance"  of  the  Treasury  is  more  than  sufificient  to  meet.  (In  1901  the  corresponding 
deficit  was  57  million  roubles,  met  from  the  same  source.)  The  iiiireascs  of  revenue, 
in  millions  of  roubles,  are:  Spirits,  9.4;  railways,  35.3;  customs,  8.8;  forests,  ''^.i\ 
excise  on  sugar,  7;  tax  upon  trade,  3.4;  post-office,  2.4.  The  dccrcasi's  are:  Reim- 
bursement of  loans,  6.7;  mining  tax,  2.8;  land  redemption,  2.4.  The  amount  as- 
signed for  all  educational  purposes  will  be  74.8  million  roubles.  Military  expenditure 
in  the  Far  East  (not  including  a  very  considerable  sum  taken  from  the  ordinary  bud- 
get) is  18.6  millions.  Assistance  to  peasants  amounts  to  20  millions.  The  decrease 
of  net  amount  of  national  debt  in  ten  years  is  1,143.8  millions.  During  the  same 
period,  1892- 1902,  the  increase  in  the  railway  property  of  the  State  and  in  recoverable 
debts  reaches  the  huge  figure  of  2,251.9  million  roubles.  In  1900  the  State  made  a 
small  net  profit  upon  its  railways,  even  taking  into  account  the  loss  on  the  Siberian 
lines.  During  the  past  ten  years  the  Treasury  has  found  a  sum  equal  to  double  the 
increase  of  the  National  Debt  for  that  period,  for  the  construction  and  expropriation  of 
railways.  The  yield  of  cereals  for  1901  was  3,800,000  tons  below  the  average  of  the 
previous  five  years — ecjual  to  a  decrease  of  /"  10,  500.000  in  purchasing  power.  The 
five  successive  bad  harvests  represent  a  general  deficit  of  the  purchasing  capacity  ot 
the  population  of  over  ten  million  sterling.  The  "  satisfactory  estimates  for  iQ02,""and 
the  "  favourable  fulfilment  of  the  budget  for  l()oi,"  says  M.  de  Witte.  afford  "  a  clearer 
and  more  convincing  [)roof  of  KussjaN  financial  stability  than  the  niusi  l)rilliant  suc- 
cess during  a  time  of  universal  prosperity." 


FOREIGN   POLITICS 


CHAPTER   XXIV 
RUSSIA    AND    THE    NATIONS 

THE  reader  of  this  volume  has  now  considered  the  six 
great  divisions  of  interest  in  contemporary  Russia— the 
Hfe  of  her  two  capitals,  her  vast  Siberian  territory  and  its  great 
railway,  the  people  and  problems  of  the  multifarious  Caucasus, 
her  new  and  successful  empire  of  Central  Asia  with  its  present 
and  prospective  railway  system,  her  dependency  of  Finland,  and 
the  career  and  policy  of  the  man  who,  under  the  Tsar,  chiefly 
directs  her  contemporary  development.  There  remains,  in  con- 
clusion, the  vital  question:  whither  is  this  colossal  conglomera- 
tion tending?  In  other  words,  what  is  to  be  the  future  of  Rus- 
sia? Interesting  as  are  her  separate  aspects,  their  chief  impor- 
tance and  significance  for  other  people  lie  in  their  joint  and 
several  contributions  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  her  future 
destiny  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  He  would  be  a  bold 
— not  to  say  an  untrustworthy — writer  who  would  try  to  give 
a  precise  answer  to  the  above  question;  but  an  examination 
of  the  international  conditions  surrounding  Russia,  sufficient 
perhaps  to  enable  the  reader  who  has  followed  me  thus  far  to 
make  for  himself  a  forecast  in  general  terms,  may  be  attempted 
without  over-confidence. 

The  future  of  Russia,  far  more  than  that  of  any  other  coun- 
try, depends  upon  her  relations  with  other  nations.  Three 
Powers  of  the  world  enjoy  a  certain  geographical  isolation  which 
endows  them  with  a  corresponding  measure  of  political  inde- 
pendence. These  are:  first,  the  United  States;  second,  Japan; 
and  third.  Great  Britain.     Except  where  it  touches  an  entirely 

387 


.•^"•^  ap-r>-^.*p- .*»...».  ^  m  -^  ^  m^'^^^-m   w^*    ^  -*  » 


-%-»"i-  -^  9>k^.% 


388 


ALL   Tin,    RUSSL\S 


I'' ' 
i  i 


It: 
1 1 


it, 

if 


u 


h 


If 
I- 


k 


friendly  Power,  the  I'lnted  Siaie:>  max-  be  ^ai<l  t*>  lia\'e  no  fron- 
tiers at   all.      1  he   map   of    lun-(»j)e   nii^ht    })e   rejiaintcd    wuhout 
affeetint^    them.      Hiere    r^    no    ^reat    nation,    except    England, 
whose   fall  or  agorran(.h>ement   wonld  make  it  a  whit  tlie  m<)re 
or  less  sectire.     In  a  much  smaller  degree  this  is  true  of  Great 
Britain,    whose   only    frontiers    are    in    Canada    and    along   her 
Indian  boundaries.      Japan,   too,   is  a   Power  which,  except   in 
so  far  as  she  considers  Korea  to  be  ultimately  her  own,  has  no 
borders  that  her  battle-ships  cannot  protect.     The  converse  is 
truer  of  Russia  than  of  any  other  nation;    with  the  exception 
of  the  United  States,  France,  and  Italy  there  is  no  Great  Power 
whose  frontier  does  not  run  with  her  own.     A  glance  at  a  small 
scale  map  impresses  this  vital  fact.     Beginning  at  the  North, 
the  Russian  land-frontier  skirts  successively  Sweden,*  Germany, 
Austria,  Roumania  (and  through  Roumania,  the  other  Balkan 
countries  of  Bulgaria  and  Servia),  Turkey,  Persia,  Afghanistan, 
India,   China,  and   (in   Korea)  Japan.      Moreover,   Russia   has 
created   an   intimate    relationship   with   the   one   Great    Power 
whose  frontiers  do  not  touch  her  own — France;    and  by  mar- 
riage and  by  protection  she  has  interwoven  her  affairs  with  the 
two  remaining  countries  of  the  Balkan  chessboard — Greece  and 

*  As  I  shall  not  have  occasion  to  mention  Sweden  a^ain  in  this  connection  I  may 
say  here  that  a  curious  disquiet,  probably  without  any  real  basis,  exists  at  present  in 
Scandinavia  regarding  Russia.  A  number  of  Russian  spies  or  surveyors  are  said  to 
have  been  discovered  lately  in  Scandinavia,  disguised  as  pedlars,  knife-grinders,  etc., 
or  accompanying  genuine  specimens  of  these.  This  seems  incredible,  but  I  have  been 
assured  by  Swedes  that  it  is  undoubtedly  true.  It  is  certain,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
Swedish  Government  is  giving  remarkable  attention  to  its  own  military  position,  having 
under  consideration,  amongst  other  matters,  a  bill,  to  take  eflPect  immediately,  to  aug- 
ment the  period  of  compulsc^ry  military  service  from  ninety  days  to  twelve  months. 
So  noticeable  is  this  military  movement  that  the  Russian  press  has  remarked  that  "  if 
the  dual  Scandinavian  kingdom  were  hastily  preparing  for  war  it  could  scarcely  mani- 
fest a  more  feverish  energy  than  it  is  now  applying  to  the  increase  of  its  offensive  and 
defensive  power."  The  correspondent  who  quotes  this  adds  that  "money  is  being 
lavishly  spent  on  the  improvement  and  strengthening  of  old,  and  on  the  construction 
of  new,  fortresses.  A  new  first-class  fortress  and  a  camp  capable  of  accommodating 
sixty  thousand  troops  will  shortly  be  completed  at  Boden,  the  most  strategic  point  in 
the  north  of  Sweden." 


•_»<£»  »«-»-»^.»~.,»  m-  •■.•»^-»  »-.«»*..»  •-.-    r-****.    ^»    ,-» 


RUSSIA    AND    THE    NATIONS 


J 


89 


Montenegro,  and  through  the  latter,  which  is  virtually  a  Rus- 
sian dependency,  she  is  in  close  touch  with  the  House  of  Savoy. 
Thus,  no  political  or  status-threatening  question  can  arise  in 
any  nation  of  the  world — always  excepting  the  United  States 
— which  does  not  immediately  and  vitally  affect  her  own  inter- 
ests. Therefore  I  say  that  the  future  of  Russia,  far  more  than 
that  of  any  other  country,  depends  upon  her  relations  with 
other  nations.  What  is  for  the  rest  of  mankind  a  merely  humani- 
tarian motto,  nihil  humani  a  me  alienum  puto,  is  perforce  for 
Russia  the  first  axiom  of  foreign  policy. 

The  strange  bridal  of  Russia  and  France — the  alliance  of 
autocracy  and  democracy— has  been  familiar  to  all  the  world 
since  the  bands  of  the  French  warships  at  Kronstadt  played 
the  Marseillaise,  the  hymn  of  the  revolution,  before  Alexander 
III.,  whose  father  had  fallen  at  the  hands  of  revolutionists. 
This  momentous  event  was  the  direct  result  of  the  change  of 
German  policy,  marked  by  the  downfall  of  Bismarck  and  the 
refusal  of  Count  Caprivi  to  renew  the  secret  treaty  with  Rus- 
sia by  which  Bismarck  had  unscrupulously  sought  to  ''  hedge  " 
against  his  allies  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  Germany,  moreover, 
turned  to  Turkey — thereby  adding  to  a  negative  anti-Russian 
policy  a  positive  and  indeed,  in  Russian  eyes,  an  aggressive  one 
— and  Russia  turned  to  France. 

Only  since  the  Tsar's  last  visit  to  France  ihas  there  been  pub- 
lished what  appears  to  be  a  correct  account  of  the  contents  of 
the  document  constituting  the  Dual  Alliance.*  After  the  first 
development  of  the  Franco-Russian  entente,  when  a  French  fleet 
under  Admiral  Gervais  visited  Kronstadt,  M.  Ribot  being  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  AfYairs,  a  Military  Convention  was  signed,  in 
1891.  This  stipulated  that  if  either  nation  were  attacked  by 
Germany,  the  other  should  come  to  its  aid  with  a  certain  speci- 

*  JVinifr  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  September  21,  and  La  Liberty,  an  interview  with 
M.  Jules  Hansen,  September  26,  1901. 


390 


A  If.    nil     HI  SSI  AS 


w 


i 


ill 


I4-I 

^f.: 


i-^ 


I 

I; 


^^  I 


fied  force.  The  word  '^illiancc  "  did  not  occur,  nor  was  it 
used  in  any  of  the  ofticial  s|)ceches.  d1ii,>  Convention  ajipcars 
to  have  l)een  extended  in,  iS()4.  hnt  it  was  not  nntil  President 
I^Y'lix  Faure's  visit  to  Rn-sia.  m  iScjC).  that  th.e  tinal  stej)  so  mnch 
desired  by  France  was  taken,  a  formal  treaty  of  alhance  being- 
signed  in  1897  ^'i»^l  annonnced  to  the  world  bv  the  Tsar's 
famous  words,  nafioiis  amies  ci  alliccs,  in  his  speech  on  board 
the  Pothuau. 

This  treaty  gains  greatly  in  scope  and  significance  by  the 
omission  of  all  direct  reference  to  Germany.  It  declares  that 
if  either  nation  is  attacked,  the  other  will  come  to  its  assistance 
with  the  whole  of  its  own  military  and  naval  forces,  and  that 
peace  shall  only  be  concluded  in  concert  and  by  agreement  be- 
tween the  two.  No  other  casus  belli  is  mentioned,  no  term  is 
fixed  to  the  duration  of  the  treaty,  and  the  whole  instrument 
consists  of  only  a  few  clauses. 

If  this  account  be  correct,  and  there  seems  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  it  is  substantially  so,  a  more  pacific  document  could 
hardly  be  devised.     So  pacific,  indeed,  is  it,  that  as  the  leading 
Hungarian  paper  remarked,  it  only  serves  to  guarantee  to  Ger- 
many the   undisturbed   possession   of  Elsass  and    Lothringen. 
Its  pacific  character,  moreover,  w^as  pointedlv  emphasised  by 
the  Tsar  in  his  last  speech  at  Compiegne,  when  he  described  the 
French  army,  whose  magnificent  evolutions  he  had  just  wit- 
nessed, as  ''  a  powerful  support  of  the  principles  of  equity  upon 
which  repose  general  order,  peace,  and  the  welbbeing'of  na- 
tions "—a  phrase  in  which  some  commentators  have  seen,  prob- 
ably with  justice,  an  allusion  to  the  international  Court  of  Arbi- 
tration at  the  Hague.     And  I  may  add  that  from  all  I  learned 
in  Russia  I  believe  the  Tsar  would  be  more  likely  to  draw  the 
sword  to  compel  some  international  dispute  to  be  settled  by 
arbitration  instead  of  by  war,  than  for  any  other  object. 

The  Treaty  of  Alliance,  it  is  added,  had  an  important  financial 
corollary.      In   return    for   the   guarantee   afforded    to    F-ance 


RUSSIA    AND    did]-:    NATIONS 


39^ 


against  German  aggression,  and  to  free  Russia  from  lier  finan- 
cial dependence  upon  Berlin,  it  was  agreed  that  Russia  should 
be  allowed  to  contract  loans  upon  the  Paris  market  to  the  total 
amount  of  1,500,000.000  francs,  in  three  or  four  series. 

The  Dual  Alliance  has  naturally  had  for  result  to  confer 
upon  France  a  confidence  and  a  calm  she  had  not  previously 
felt — or  rather  to  relieve  her  from  a  fear  w^hich  need  have  had 
no  terrors  for  her,  while  Russia  has  enjoyed  a  military  prestige 
beyond  that  to  which  her  own  arms  entitle  her,  for  it  has  been 
believed  that,  though  she  might  exert  a  restraining  influence 
upon  France,  the  latter  would  be  ready  enough  to  make  any 
Russian  quarrel  her  ow^n.  But  practically  the  Dual  Alliance  has 
had  chiefly  a  financial  result — the  investment  of  many  hundreds 
of  millions  of  francs  in  Russian  immovable  securities — for  it  is 
largely  in  repaying  State  advances  to  Russian  railways  that  the 
French  loans  have  been  employed.  The  Russian  alliance  has 
not  saved  France  from  attack,  for  nobody  has  dreamed  of 
attacking  her;  and  on  the  one  occasion  when  she  might  have 
drawn  the  sword — about  Fashoda — the  influence  of  St.  Peters- 
burg was,  with  profound  wisdom,  used  in  the  interests  of  peace. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  France  is  growing  somewhat  tired 
of  this  one-sided  bargain,  and  that  she  is  alive  to  the  fact  that, 
while  Russia  is  adding  enormously  to  her  sphere  in  the  Far 
East,  she  herself  stands  wdiere  she  did  before  the  fetes  of  Kron- 
stadt  and  Toulon.  I  think  that  in  a  certain  degree  this  is  un- 
doubtedly the  case.  The  jest  that  w^hen  the  charlotte  russe  was 
placed  upon  the  mess-table,  the  French  officers  rose  and 
cheered,  would  have  no  point  to-day.  Moreover,  the  genera- 
tion which  fought  in  1870  is  dying  out,  and  the  new  genera- 
tion has  forgotten  Deroulede's  war-poems,  and  only  looks  upon 
him  as  the  rather  ridiculous  conspirator  of  an  impossible 
'*  plebiscitary  republic."  The  Kaiser,  too,  ceases  not  his  friendly 
overtures — witness  the  distinguished  reception  of  French  officers 
at  the   German  manoeuvres,  the  abandonment  of  the  annual 


''   »'fll.«-N     -    .•••>^»>' 


y;"^  y**^'*  *^*  -»-<■>»»  to  -,--v  ,11. .-..,,  <./^,, 


4  [^     *r^  <  ..4  {, 


"''in--  ..    ^infr,.-.>«'i 


Ui 


m 

IN 


(  ! 


392 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


ffl' 
»1 


military  banquet   at   Aletz   in   celehration  of  the   surrender  at 
Sedan,  and  the  motor-car  race  from    I'ans  to  Herhn-— an  event 
inconceivable  ten  years  ai^nx     The  lunperor  William  II.  has  set 
his  heart  upon  certam  aims  which  are  before  him  now  at  every 
waking  instant.     To  the  realisation  of  these  Russia  will  inevi- 
tably be  opposed.    Therefore  it  is  of  the  most  urgent  importance 
to  him  to  allay  French  resentment  and  if  possible  secure  French 
neutrality,  and  to  this  end  he  will  spare  no  effort  and  stop  at 
no  step  short  of  the  actual  relinquishment  of  territory.     Such 
an  attitude  on  the  part  of  Germany  is  obviously  calculated  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  the  alliance  of  France  with  Rus- 
sia.    I  do  not  think  it  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  some  day 
the  Kaiser  will  succeed  in  his  earnest  desire  to  visit  Paris,  and 
from  that  moment  the  Dual  Alliance  will  possess  onlv  an  anti- 
quarian interest,  so  far  as  it  regards  Germanv.     So  far  as  Eng- 
land is  concerned,  its  French  support  will  be  further  weakened 
by  the  improvement  in  the  relations  l)etween  the  t.vo  nations 
which  seems  happily  in  prospect.     Finallv,  the  rapidlv  approach- 
mg  financial  embarrassment  of  France  herself*  mav  make  it  dif^- 
cult  for  Russia  to  raise  on  the  Paris  market  the  remainder  of  the 
vast  sum  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  signature  of  the 
Treaty  of  Alliance,  and  is  certainly  likelv  to  cause  her  investors 
to  be  more  sensible  to  the  great  depreciation  of  the  Russian 
securities  they  already  hold.     The  following  statement  recently 
appeared   simultaneously  in  a  number  of  French   newspapers 
thus  having  the  character  of  a  commumquc  inspired  from  some 
quarter: 

fJJ^V'""^^  ''"u^"  '"  "'°'  "  ^"""K"'  •"  ^''""-  ^  -™in^'  surplus  of  7  770  c,g 

r.ncs.     In  real.ty,  there  is  a  deficit  of  no  less  than   ,o,.6fio.,Sq7  francs      VuZlll 

ten  months  end  ng  October  71    mor    .1,.  ,  ■    (/  'rancs.      During  the 

be  added,  however,  that  this  loan,  Z^^l^Z'Z    "      7  '"""',    "  """'' 
over.      Lord  Rosebery  has  ;us.  ren,inded     s    h^  le^^  ^  dtvaT'    °"^;^r" 

000,000,  and  that  this  year  there  ;.,,(■•     ■       ,  '  "'*  "  •^^°'- 

The  F.nch  national  .JZ^^:,  1:^:12::  -'''''  "^^^  ^^  ^^-^- 


RUSSIA   AND    THE    NATIONS  393 

"  The  enormous  fall  wthich  has  occurred  in  all  Russian  stocks 
is  calculated  to  disquiet  French  capitalists  heavily  involved  in 
them.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance  for  them  to  be  accu- 
rately informed  on  the  possible  consequences  of  this  fall,  which 
in  the  case  of  some  stocks  is  only  temporary  and  may  even  be 
profited  by,  but  which,  in  the  case  of  a  large  number,  is  but 
the  signal  for  inevitable  discomfiture."  For  this  reason  Rus- 
sian enthusiasm  for  the  alliance  may  also  wane,*  though  the  Tsar 
himself  will  doubtless  continue  to  attach  the  greatest  importance 
to  it  for  the  immense  support  it  gives  him  in  his  efYorts  for  in- 
ternational peace. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  though  the  Dual  Alliance  w^ill 
linger  long  in  name,  most  competent  observers  believe  that  its 
political  potency  will  be  a  diminishing  quantity,  unless,  through 
the  improvement  of  relations  between  Russia  and  Great  Britain, 
the  latter  become  a  kind  of  sleeping  partner  in  it,  or  unless  those 
relations  grow  more  unfriendly,  and  Great  Britain  allies  herself 
to  some  other  Power.     Its  moral  effect,  however,  will  last  as 

♦  A   significant  proof  of   the  very  limited  scope  of  the   Dual  Alliance  has  been 
furnished  by  the  attitude  of  the  Russian  press  (which  would  not  have  been  tolerated 
by  the  authorities  if  it  had  run  counter  to  their  own  views)  upon  the  French  seizure  of 
Mitylene  to  compel  the  Sultan  to  satisfy  a  number  of  French  pecuniary  and  political 
claims.      "It  has  naturally  been  assumed  abroad,"  wrote  the  St.   Petersburg  corre- 
spondent  of   TJi^   Times,   "that  France    has  not  acted  as  she  has  done  without  the 
approval  of  Russia,  even  if  she  has  not  been  guided  by  the  advice  of  her  powerful  ally. 
The  attitude  of  the  Russian  press  renders  this  view  untenable.      .      .      .     The  action 
of  France  in  taking  direct  and  energetic  measures  to  punish  the  Sultan  for  his  insolent 
evasions  is  regarded  without  sympathy,  and  even  with  disapproval  and  alarm."    More- 
over, the   charge  that   Russia,   the  ally  of  France,   and    Russia  alone,   supported   the 
Sultan  against  the  legitimate  and  unaggressive  demands  of  France,  has  just  been  made 
with  great   weight    and    directness   by  a    high    French    authority.      Professor  Victor 
Bcrard,  of  the  Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes,  a  well-known  writer  upon  foreign  politics,  in 
the  /^^'ue  de  Paris  for  December  15,  1901,  analyses  the  European  situation  to  find  out 
by  whose  support  the  Sultan  was  encouraged  to  resist  France  to  the  last  moment,  and 
this  is  his  answer:      "One  Power  alone  appeared  to  hesitate,  and  for  two  months  of 
the  ten  weeks  of  the  Turk's   obstinacy  withheld  its  opinion.      It  was  not  till  early  in 
November  that  we  learned  from  an  official  note  that  M.  Zinovieflf  [Russian  ambassador 
in  Constantinople]  had  in  person  urgently  advised  the  Palace  and  the  Porte  to  yield  to 
the  French  injunctions. " 


-.a 


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•.jj^^.  ».—^.«.4-f »^'>-«-y.»':.»  -  *-;_»^_ j»-.-*-.^ »  «»-.  r  •*  i»  ♦'«.    ,.  »  '-.,,.  \]c-'.'    .    , 


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394 


ALL   THE    RL  SSLIS 


long-  as  the  present  Tsar  fills  the  tlinnic  of  Russia  and  cnniniues 
to  resist  the  reactionary  and  helhcose  anions-  his  own  surround- 
ings. In  any  case,  it  has  hitherto  been  an  alhance  of  peace,  and  on 
that  g-round  the  future  wih  call  it  blessed. 


The  relations  of  Russia  and  Germany  make  a  very  different 
Story.  They  are  concerned  with  the  future,  and  with  a  coming 
situation  possibly  more  delicate  and  more  pregnant  than  any- 
thing since  the  fall  of  the  first  Xapoleon— a  situation,  moreover, 
that  may  burst  upon  us  any  day  between  night  and  morning. 

To  understand  this,  it  is  necessary  to  look  back  a  little.    The 
keynote  of  Bismarck's  foreign  policy  was — keep  on  good  terms 
with  Russia.    To  that  he  subordinated,  and,  if  needful,  was  ready 
to  sacrifice,  every  other  German  interest  abroad.     For  that,  he 
went  so  far  as  to  play  a  crooked  game  with  Germany's  chief 
partner  in  the  Triple  Alliance.     For  that,  he  contemptuously 
declared  that  the  Balkans  were  ''  not  worth  the  bones  of  a  Prus- 
sian grenadier,"  because  Russia  desired  to  extend  her  influence 
there.     For  that,  he  even  condoned  that  barefaced  outrage,  the 
Russian  plot  to  kidnap  Prince  Alexander  of  Bulgaria,  a  Ger- 
man prince.     For  that,  he  inspired  his  reptile  press  to  stir  up 
ill-will  with  England,  and  himself  even  launched  a  most  offen- 
sive insult  against  the  British  royal  house,  because  he  knew 
that  Russia  would  be  instantly  alarmed  by  a  rapprochement  be- 
tween Germany  and  England,  but  would  remain  on  good  terms 
with  a  Germany  which  occasionally  growled  across  the  North 
Sea.     At  the  same  time,  he  took  g^ood  care  to  keep  Russia 
convinced  that  if  Germany  wished  it.  she  could  at  any  time  have 
an  alliance  with  England,  and  therefore  he  managed  that  the 
relations  of  Germany  with  England  should  remain  at  the  stage 
of  a  vague  irritation,  and  not  take  on  such  an  aspect  of  irre- 
mediable rupture  as  would  naturally  tempt  Russia  to  seek  in 
England  an  ally  against  Germany— the  astonishing  and  almost 


RUSSIA    AND    THE    NATIONS 


395 


J 


shocking  obsequiousness  of  British  policy  toward  Germany  mak- 
ing his  task  an  easy  one.  So  strongly  were  both  States  per- 
meated with  this  Bismarckian  policy  of  a  Russo-German  under- 
standing that  a  dying  Tsar  and  a  dying  Kaiser  alike  urged  it 
upon  their  successors.  Indeed,  it  appeared  rooted  in  German 
policy,  and  when  the  Russian  Foreign  Minister  once  remarked 
to  Bismarck  that  he  had  every  confidence  in  him,  but  was  he 
sure  that  his  own  position  was  secure,  the  Iron  Chancellor  re- 
plied indignantly  that  his  Imperial  master  had  perfect  confi- 
dence in  him,  and  that  he  would  assuredly  only  lay  down  his 
office  with  his  life. 

Such  were  the  relations  of  Russia  and  Germany  up  to  a 
short  time  after  William  II.  ascended  the  throne.  How  sim- 
ply and  suddenly  he  "  dropped  the  old  pilot  "  in  1890  is  well 
known.  The  dismissed  and  astounded  Bismarck  never  forgave 
his  Emperor,  and  the  closing  years  of  his  life  were  deeply 
stained  by  an  unparalleled  series  of  malevolent  interviews,  in- 
spired articles,  and  deliberate  breaches  of  confidence,  all  in- 
tended to  prove  that  Germany's  policy  had  become  anti-Rus- 
sian, and  that  nothing  but  disaster  awaited  the  Fatherland  in 
consequence.  But  William  II.  went  on  his  way  unmoved,  and 
bit  by  bit  his  policy  and  his  ambitions  have  been  revealed  to 
students  of  European  affairs.  They  are  original,  daring,  and 
gigantic.  Moreover,  he  has,  up  to  the  present,  succeeded  at 
every  step.  But  the  crucial  time  has  not  yet  come.  When  it 
does  come,  he  will  possibly  be  found  to  have  been  aiming  at 
nothing  less  than  a  transformation  of  the  map  of  Europe,  and 
an  extension  of  the  German  Imperial  sphere,  in  comparison 
with  which  the  annexation  of  Elsass  and  Lothringen  was,  from 
the  standpoint  of  national  economics,  but  like  adding  a  potato- 
patch  to  a  dukedom. 

I  do  not  mean  that  after  he  had  dismissed  Bismarck  the 
Kaiser  adopted  a  frankly  anti-Russian  policy.  That  would  have 
been  as  contrary  to  his  own  diplomatic  methods  as  it  would 


i 


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''•*-x\---  ■% 


.«»*«.- 


»■■*■*..''. 


■  «»;  W  9^  trlM  .m-'-M   m  «•■ 


396 


ALL    MIL    KLS.sLAS 


'•1' 


'J 

i 


It. 


i" 

I  ».< 

It'* 

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r  .» 


liavc  been  di>ta>tfU,l  to  li,>  people  nnd  .lancreroii.  tn  tlie  =ecnri.v 
nt  In.  Empire.     On  tlic  eor.tran.  lie  en,leavo„re.l  t,,  cun>l„ne  all 
the  advantages  of  a  -(km]  nn.lerMan.lin-  wnli  Rn.fia,  „ith  the 
advantage  also   to  be   found   ni   complete   free,ln„i   of  pe,]itical 
action.     ■•The  nicessant  movement  of  lu.s  imai^niatK.n.-  as  an 
anonymous  writer  has  recently  .sa,d.  '•  presents  lum  m  turn  with 
equally    persuasive    pietures    (,f    me(impatii)le    designs."      But 
Ale.xander  III.  was  no  lover  ,,f  (iermanv  and  the  Ciermans    as 
Alexander  II.  !,a<l  been;    moreover,  he  was  a  convince.!  Pan- 
slavist,  and  I'anslavism  an.i  hatred  of  Ccrmanv  are  at  the  end 
of  the  same  roa.l.    Therefore  the  Kaiser  set  himself,  with  such 
a  Isar  m  Russia,  an  impossible  task.     Xo  doubt  it  was  in  large 
part  to  secure  closer   relations  with    Russia  that   he   took   the 
very  strong  step  of  throwing  aside  all  his  previous  svmpathy 
^v.th  Japan,  an.l  joining  Russia  an.i  France  in  forcing  her  to  <rive 
"P  a  large  part  of  the  fruits  of  her  victorious  war  with  Ch^na 
This  step  .nvolved  many  fateful  consequences,  several  of  which 
are  st.ll  to  come.    It  involve.l  the  seizure  of  Kiao-ehao  and  Port 

of  Manch"  r  '^r""  °^^^'-''--— -^  the  virtual  annexation 
of  Manchuna  by  Russia;  the  change  of  route  of  the  Great  Si- 
ber.an  Railway;   and.  in.leed.  it  n,ay  fairly  be  .sai.l  ,o  hav    1  ee 

i:  intsT"  '  v"'""  -  •  "^  '''   "«-^^^  ^--"^  -"  ■^"  that 
came  m  its  tram.     Moreover,  it  has  left  Russia  an.l  Japan  face 

to  fa^ce  under  con.l.tions  n,  which  war  is  only  too  possible  an 

Naturally  Russia  was  much  gratifie.l  by  the  Emperor 
^^.lI.ams  course,  hut  her  grat.tu.le,  probahlv  to  his  liveh  .lis- 
appointment,  took  no  materi-il  fnrn,      rr     .i'  <•  >   <"s 

toh.l,.  I-        u         °  "^'^t'^"'"  form-     He  thereupon  proceeded 
to  help   himself  to  a.lvantages  in  the  Ear  East  which  he  had 
-led  to  sectire  by  the  goo.l-wil,  of  his  ten,porarv  allv.     With 

TzedT'r  t"""?""""'  '~—  -^  a  pretext,  he  boldly 
seize.l  upon   Kiao-chao  an.l   announce.l  that   Shan-tung  was  a 

German  sphere  of  interest.     The   Foreign   Offices  of  Europe 

were  led  to  believe  that  Russia  was  a  consenting  partv  to  this 


m 


*w, 


•  ■  #  ^  #  i*  •>  * 


*■  'k  (#  J»  ». 


'    «-     .•  •'     .   i. 


■•■       ■-     ■'■■'      -  ...     -I, 


**^**«'  *^  ^^( 


RUSSIA    AND    THE    NAllONS 


397 


course,  and  consequently  they  failed  to  unite  in  ilie  protest 
which  would  assuredly  have  been  made  if  they  had  known  that 
Germany  was  taking  isolated  action.  This  incident  strained 
Russo-German  relations  very  severely,  as  (to  depart  for  a  mo- 
ment from  chronological  order)  did  the  precisely  similar  strata- 
gem by  which  the  command  of  the  international  forces  in 
China  was  secured  for  Count  von  Waldersee.  On  this  occa- 
sion, too,  Europe  was  given  to  understand  that  Russia's  con- 
sent had  been  obtained — indeed,  that  the  suggestion  of  the 
German  Field-Marshal  had  originated  with  her.  The  German 
version  was  specifically  repudiated  later  in  a  Russian  official 
document,  and  the  circumstances  are  believed  to  have  been  the 
subject  of  a  private  and  personal  explanation  by  the  Kaiser  to 
the  Tsar. 

From  all  these  events — to  say  nothing  of  the  two  visits 
of  the  Emperor  William  to  England  and  his  enthusiastic  recep- 
tion there — it  will  be  clear  that  the  relations  between  Russia 
and  Germany  must  now  be  widely  different  from  what  they 
were  in  Bismarckian  days.  And  to  complete  the  picture  so 
far,  must  be  added  the  conviction  in  St.  Petersburg  that  Ger- 
many is  about  to  impose  an  increased  duty  upon  the  import 
of  Russian  cereals.  If  this  be  done,  Russia  has  alreadv  bluntlv 
declared  that  she  will  retaliate — a  tariff  war. 

In  the  foregoing,  however,  we  have  hardly  yet  touched  upon 
the  real  and  fundamental  causes  which  are  moulding  the  rela- 
tions of  Russia  and  Germany  to-day.  These  are  not  isolated 
incidents  or  personal  encounters,  but  new  springs  of  national 
policy,  new  drifts  of  racial  development.  The  fact — as  Russia 
sees  it — is  that  Germany  has  deliberately  placed  herself  athwart 
Russian  policy  in  each  one  of  the  three  paths  along  which  Rus- 
sian statesmen  desire  that  their  country  should  enjoy  an  un- 
impeded progress.  These  three  paths  lie  in  the  Far  East,  the 
Near  East,  and  toward  the  Persian  Gulf.  Here,  then,  we  at 
last  touch  the  danger-zone  of  contemporary  European  politics, 


'  ii 


;i 


■■;>j 


'•'"''y'5_..!... *•'"*•*'-  >*■ 


J9^ 


ALL    THi:    RISSIAS 


;f 


Hi 


y 


Iff 

i 

M 


•!  i 

11 


nnd   the  most   important   factor  in  the  fnture  of  the   Rt.ssian 
Lmf)ire. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  a  German  action,  ris  a  vis  Russia 
in  the   J.ar  l-.st.     It  ,„ay  be  smnnied  up  as  a  clain,  to  sitare 
a  position  which  Russia  has  re.^arded  as  predestined  to  be  hers 
alone      Germany  has  come  into  North  China;    she  has  estab- 
lished a   naval   base   there  and  ap,,ropriated  a  province-    she 
sect,red-by  sharp  ,,ractice,  as  Russia  thinks-the  conspicuous 
leadership  of  the  European  nations;    she   has  concluded  with 
England  an  open  Convention  which,  in  spite  of  assurances  to 
the   contrary,   means  that  under  certain   circumstances    she  is 
pledged  to  join   in   opposition   to   Russian   designs;    she   now 
maintains   a   considerable  naval   force  in   Far    Eastern   waters- 
she  has,  ,n  a  word,  given  Russia  clearly  to  understan<l  that  any 
further    extension    of    Russian    power    in    China    must    either 
square      Germany  or  overcome  her  opposition,  and  this  is  a 
new,  a  serious,  and  a  wholly  unexpected  obstacle  in  the  path 
ot  Russian  policy. 

German  activity  in  the  Xear  I-.st   is  a  much  chrker  cloud 
still  upon  the  Russian  horizon.      h:vcnts  there  have  moved  for 
a  lon^  time  precisely  as  Russia  has  desired,  and  her  desires  there 
are  deeply  rooted  in  the  a.pn-atmn.  and  cnnhdcnt  h<,pcs  of  her 
people.     Turkey  has  slowly  hui   steadilv  decaved.     The   Rus- 
sian Ambassador  at  Constantiiu.ple  has  hoen  the  power  behind 
the  throne.     Step  by  step  Bul,ana.  which,  under  the  ferocious 
patriotisin   of  Staml>olof,    barred    the    Russian   advance   in    the 
Balkans,    has   been    brought    back    under   Muscovite   influence 
Stan^bolof  s  strong  and  busy  hands,  chopped  off  in  front  of  his 
oun  house,  are  preserved  by  his  wife  in  a  bottle  of  spirits-    his 
nninlerers,  well-known  tc>  e^^^ 

h  tie  I  rirjce  Boris  was  baptised  into  the  Greek  Church;  Russia 
has  lent  Bulgaria  monev,  and  has  once  more  sent  her  ofilcers 
to  the  Buloarian  army;  Prince  Ferdinand  has  been  permitted 
to  entertain  a  Russian  Grand  Duke  m  a  Bulgarian  port,  and 


RUSSLA    AND    THE    NATIONS 


399 


the  next  steps  will  be  his  reception  by  the  Tsar  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, his  remarriage  with  a  Russian  or  pro-Russian  princess, 
and  the  elevation  of  Bulgaria  into  a  kingdom. 

All  this  has  come  about  precisely  as  Russia  desired.  So, 
too,  with  Servia,  hitherto  jealously  dominated  by  Austria.  The 
King  and  Queen  of  Servia  are  about  to  visit  the  Tsar  and 
Tsaritsa,  and  the  Tsar  was  prepared  to  be  godfather  to  the  ex- 
pected but  mythical  heir.  Panslavism  is  rejoicing,  too,  in  the 
coming  joint  session  of  the  Bulgarian  and  Servian  parliaments, 
with  its  probable  resolution  of  affection  for  Russia.  Prince 
Nicholas  of  Alontenegro  remains  the  devoted  friend  of  the 
Tsar,  as  he  was  of  his  father,  and  his  influence  is  naturally 
much  greater  now  that  his  daughter  is  Queen  of  Italy. 
Only  Roumania  preserves  her  diplomatic  independence  of  Rus- 
sia, and  indeed,  has  just  concluded  a  military  convention  with 
Austria.  With  this  single  exception,  the  obstacles  to  a  Rus- 
sian advance  to  Constantinople  had  gradually  been  removed, 
when  suddenly  it  dawned  upon  an  astonished  Europe  and  an 
indignant  Russia  that  the  Kaiser's  "  mailed  fist  "  had  obtruded 
itself  into  the  way.  During  the  Armenian  massacres  Germany, 
with  calculated  and  placid  indifference,  declined  to  speak  or 
act.  The  Turkish  army  was  supplied  from  German  factories 
with  cannon  and  ammunition;  when  she  took  the  ffeld  against 
Greece  a  German  general  drew  up  the  plan  of  campaign;  and 
the  Turkish  council  of  war  at  Elassona  followed  German  advice 
day  by  day.  (I  was  a  prisoner  in  that  camp  for  twelve  hours 
shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  war,  so  I  am  not  speaking  with- 
out some  personal  knowledge.)  The  Kaiser's  brother-in-law, 
the  Crown  Prince  of  Greece,  commanded  the  Greek  army 
against  the  irresistible  combination  of  Turkish  troops  and  Ger- 
man tactics,  while  the  Kaiser's  sister  wept  bitterly  over  her 
brother's  ruthless  indifference  toward  her  adopted  country.  For 
a  while  Germany  contributed  one  second-rate  warship  to  the 
blockade  of  Crete,  and  finally  withdrew  even  that.    The  Kaiser 


m 


r 


V  •••  .  .»i;  t  fm'  It- 1,  r  .-•r-^ 


'*»■'•  ■■  *».:?"■  «''3^:« 


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r 


ft" 


I J 


ir 


III 


111 


0  I 


' 


400 


ALL   THE    RUSSLAS 


KUSSLA    AND    THE    NATIONS 


401 


has  made  a  triumphal  progress  in  Constantinople  and  in  Asia 
Minor.     Finally,  the  way  henig  thus  earelully  made  ready,  Ger- 
many, with  eonhdent  au.lacity  and  entire  success,  took  the  step 
for  which  all  the  rest   had  been   but  preparation,   and  openly 
thrust  her  line  of  policy  not  only  across  the  ambitions  of  Russia 
but  into  the  very  kernel  and  heart  of  Russia's  most  cherished 
plan.     I  allude,  of  course,  to  the  concession  by  the  Sultan  to  a 
German  company  of  the  right  to  build  a  railway  from  the  Bos- 
phorus  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  via  Baghdad,  the  momentous  scheme 
I  have  already  described  in  detail  when  writing  of  Russian  rail- 
way expansion  in  Central  Asia.*     Russian  official  resentment 
of  what  is  regarded  as  a  deliberate  invasion  of  her  own  sphere, 
a  project  which  can  succeed  only  at  the  expense  of  her  own 
most  cherished  ambition,  is  great,  while  the  Russian  press  emits 
a  most  unusual  note  of  pessimism.     "  The  German  invasion  of 
Asiatic  Turkey,"  says  the  Nozvyc  J'rcmya,  "goes  steadily  for- 
ward, always  and  undeviatingly  forward,  whilst  Russia,  unfort- 
unately, looks  on  as  a  silent  and  helpless  spectator  at  the  grad- 
ual destruction  of  her  interests  and  the  dissipation  of  her  hopes 
in  Asia  Minor."     And  the  Szict  is  permitted  to  launch  its  tiny 
thunderbolt  straight  at  the  head  of  the  Kaiser  himself.    "  Day 
after  day,"  it  declares,  "  the  Emperor  William  is  dealing  Russia 
blows  severely  felt."     "  The  Persian  Gulf,"  adds  the  Novosti. 
"  is  to  be  the  question  of  the  near  future  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  world  problems."    So  acrimonious  is  Russian  criticism  of 
everything  German  just  now  that  the  Novoyc  J'rcmya.  by  far 
the  most  important  paper  in  the  Empire,  recently  declared  it 
to  be  "  credibly  alleged  "  that  the  German  agents  at  Haidar 
Pasha  of  the  Baghdad  railway  "  fired  the  properties  in  order  to 
clear  a  site  for  the  company's  railway  station,  depots,  engme- 
sheds,  etc.,  and  with  the  further  economic  purpose  of  acquiring 
the  land  at  a  very  low  price !  " 

•  See  Chapter  XVII.,  and  for  Russian  expansion  towar.l  I'crs.u  the  cndudui;;  part 
of  Chapter  XIV. 


To   understand   this   indignation,   it   should   be   remembered 
that  it  springs  not  only  from  this  serious  direct  issue,  but  al^o 
from  the  even  more  menacing  underlying  indirect  issue.     The 
former  is  the  determination  of  Russia  to  secure  at  any  cost  the 
control  of  Persia  and  a  naval  and  maritime  outlet  upon  the  Per- 
sian Gulf.     Persia  is  perfectly  helpless  before  her,  she  is  virtu- 
ally mistress  in  Tehran,  her  plans  for  railway  extension  from 
the  Caucasus  (as  shown  upon  my  map)  are  being  rapidly  pushed 
forward,  and  she  has  surveyed  the  route  for  her  own  railway 
through  Persia  to  the  Gulf.     This  extension  she  regards  as  a 
matter  of  life  and  death— so  much  so  that  her  leading  news- 
paper recentlv  declared  that  if  England  would  consent  to  this, 
every  other  i'ssue  between  the  two  countries  could  be  settled 
amicablv  and  at  once.    But  the  indirect  and  greater  issue  is  the 
German  Emperor's  patronage  and  even  protection  of  the  Sul- 
tan of  Turkev,  of  which  this  Baghdad  railway  concession  is  only 
one  result.     Russian  diplomacy,  usually  so  perspicuous,  failed 
to  foresee  this.     Turkev,  since  the  Armenian  massacres,  was 
believed  to  have  no  powerful  friend  in  Europe,  and  her  gradual 
disintegration  was  counted  as  one  of  the  factors  of  Russian  for- 
eign policv.    In  fact,  the  Russian  ambassador  at  Constantinople 
often  app'eare<l  to  act  more  like  the   Resident  in  a   Protected 
State  than  the  representative  of  one  sovereign  at  the  Court  ot 
another.    The  injury  to  Russian  plans  by  the  German  blow  was 
therefore  the  more  galling  because  of  the  surprise  with  which 
this  was  struck.* 

.  This  aspect  of  the  relations  between  Russia.  Germany,  and  Turkey,  is  becoming 

inis  aspct.1  ui   iiic  TTnrnnp       For  instance,  while  writ- 

,he  subject  of  frequent  comment  .n  the  -P^^  f^";?!,,  ^^  /^  ,,3  ,,en  through- 

cermany  has  been  in  ^:  ^ :^;:^:::::::::: z  :::z..r..L. 

7:Z:Z  ::  if  s™  ;:  e^dl^er  the  peace  of  Europe  by  deserved  measures 

-.r-a  ,00.  upon  ,hAu„.,n  as  natu.Uy  ar.  of  right     ependent  upon  her.^^It 
is  to  her  that  he  must  look  for  support  if  he  needs  il. 


\\ 


U' 


*:»2W>,-"-' 


».*.,■•    ««"- :j'F"  "^'"r-f  , 


«.*•»  i<>'*i:'.( 


'»^j^'~f'"'^t»' 


,&■'„».—  "*.'*.•  ""^  ' 


^^^t^i  ^^j-*^.* 


:n 


i\  ,»! 


ALL     1H1-.    RUSSIAS 


402 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  vclatu.n>  of  R.i.^ki  with  Ger- 
n.anv  are  highlv  crU.cal.      li  the  lunperor  N\-,lUanM>er.,>ts  ,n 
,he  ;chcn.e  he  has  so  ,M-andly  conceue.l  an,l,  up  to  the  present, 
pushed  forward  wkh  extraordinary  skill-and  he  .>  not  tite  ntan 
to  be  frightened  from  Ins  ardently  desired  ,oal-a  rupture  o, 
the  traditional  relations  between  Berhn  an<l  St.  Fetersburg  may 
not  be  far  off.*     I  .need  not  point  out  what  a.i  opportutttty  thts 
skuation  afTords  to  England,  if  she  finds  a  statesman  w.th  m- 
sight  and  courage  to  take  advantage  of  it.     The  more  so    as 
she  holds  in  her  hands  for  the  mon.ent  the  key  to  the  Innldtng 
of  this  Baghdad  ra.hvay,  which  cannot  recetve  .ts  S--";"  ^"^ 
the  Sultan  unless  he  is  permitted  to  raise  the  Turkish  tarttf.f 

German  Emperor  to  take  the  Sultan  un  ,.,„,,„hout  been  regarded  here  with 

for  commercial  and   financial  concessions  have  throughou    been  reg 
lor  com  p,i,,,i,ur!' (omsponJent,  hovfnher  qtn- 

unconcealed  mdignat.on.    St.  I  clirsMog  <"        /  strategical 

«  A  significant  feature  in  the  '<.-«"  relations  of  Ku     a  arc  the  no,  t_^^^ 

railways  she  is  building  toward   the  fntier  o    OaUc  a.  ■     "^   ^  .^ 

,he  concentration  of  troops  from  Sou  hern  Kussi.^on    ^  ^^  ^  ^„^.^^.^^, 

obviously  directed  to  the  Balkans  ^\^^^''^^  T  ;ermanv-indeed,  one 
farther  north,  is  a  military  measure  ag.^lnsl  ^f"-^^'  ^.  „,^  ,..„„,,,  c.eneral 

account  declares  that   it  is  being  constructed  a.  the  ^"\^'^  Mogove  (.0 

Stafi  as  a  condition  of  the  last  Russian  loan  in  lr.ancel      It  sta    s  <™m  '    U.  ^  ^ 

.hich  a  line  comes  -'^^^^::X:;<:::^^^ ^'^^^^^^^^^^  ^^^''- 

j;;Xsr  i::::oX^K:::ian1;ol:r:.fi;ch  isthru.  ...een  -ussla  and  Au^n. 
The  expropriation  of  the  land  for  this  line  was  ordere.l  by  an  Imperia  ..  dated 
c  >    ,,.    TQOi    it  is  to  t>e  finished  by  next  February,  engineers  and  navvies  are 

of  immediate  and  dangerous  tension  v^•ith  one  or  other  of  h.r  ,v^o  neighbour 
^^r^  help  thinking  there   is   some   reas^.o Jear  that   I.rd    Salisbury^.. 

-::f.r.:r .,:  ::n  ^= ":  r;ht;^:af trconc:-  .o  oerman. 


RUSSIA    AND    THI-     NATIONS 


403 


With  Austria,  no  less  than  with  Germany,  have  Russia's  rela- 
tions recently  undergone  a  rapid  and  a  vital   change.     For  a 
number  of  years  past  peace  has  been  guaranteed  in  the  Balkans 
—the  powder-magazine  of  Europe— by   the  common  decision 
of  St.  Petersburg  and  Vienna  that  they  would  not  allow  it  to 
be  broken.     Indeed  it  was  preposterous  that  these  semi-civilised 
little  States,  sizzling  with  ill-digested  ambition,  ignorant,  reck- 
less, ceaselessly  intriguing,  should  be  able  at  any  moment  to 
precipitate  a  situation  in  which  two  mighty  empires  might  find 
themselves  irresistibly  dragged  into  a  colossal  and  ruinous  war. 
Therefore  Russia  and  Austria,  having  decided  that  this  should 
not  be,  proceeded  to  communicate  their  decision  to  Servia  and 
Bulgaria  in  terms  that  left  no  room  for  misunderstanding,  and 
Europe  breathed  freely.    It  was  tacitly  understood  that  Austria 
would  not  interfere  in  Bulgaria,  while  Russia  recognised  that 
Servia  must  be  more  or  less  under  Austrian  influence. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  freedom  of  Bulgaria  was 
the  result  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  and  that  Servia  was  saved 
from  Bulgaria  during  the  war  between  the  two  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Graf  von  Khevenhiiller,  Austrian  Consul-General  at 
Belgrad,  at  the  Bulgarian  outposts  beyond  Pirot,  announcing 
to  Prince  Alexander  that  if  he  advanced  farther  he  would  find 
not  Servian  but  Austrian  bayonets  in  his  front.  Thus  each  of 
the  two  Great  Powers  had  a  kind  of  prescriptive  right  to  exer- 
cise influence  over  one  of  the  two  little  Balkan  States. 

Roumania  did  not  come  under  this  arrangement,  for  though 
she  fought  with  Russia  against  Turkey,  and,  indeed,  according 
to  Moltke,  saved  the  Russian  army  from  the  loss  of  the  results 
of  one  whole  campaign,  she  was  alienated  by  her  treatment  by 
Russia  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  she  has  been  virtually  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Triple  Alliance  for  a  good  many  years.     Roumania 

-with  another  to  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  Austria-is  not  part  of  the  price 
they  will  have  to  pay  for  the  Kaiser's  conspicuous  and  unwavering  neutrality  during 
the  war  in  South  Africa.     The  "  honest  broker  "  does  not  usually  work  for  nothing. 


11 


ll 


T.:'f*sA.~ 


JSLOU^.     -*",'.-     .~X-9m.^t%*  f&W^  flir'Vliy'^^  ' 


-i.-''#*tr*-w  ->-r*i**''""IWB' ." .  "^Tf  "*i>«"TJ* ^w^t0fM^^4  J^rJ^ ^ 


■"-.^•"v  *"•■.-*. 


.,^^...,^-  -^^^»-"• 


ill 


Mi 


404 


AIJ.    1  HI.    RLSSIAS 


.•II 


i.;r' 


ij 


t 


If 

'I 
,1 


1*!^ 


IT 


i 


11! 


ft 
» » 

n 

II- 


It*  ■ 


is  the  most  civilised  an.l  the  n,.,.t  po^vcrful  cf  the  P.alkan  coun- 
tries and  so  far  from  Russia  luuius  S"i"e.l  intluence  there,  the 
only' result  of  the  growth  of  Russian  iniltiet.ce  .n  the  P.alkans 
is  that  Routnauia  has  jt.^t  couchuled  a  new  m.Utary  convention 
_or  more  probablv,  coulirmed  an  old  one^wilh  Austria,  bo 
si^nnficant  is  this  last  act.  that  the  Rcichs^^cln:  the  semi-otticial 
journal  of  the  Austro-Hunirarian  army,  has  published  the  fol- 
lowing remarkable  comments: 

"  It  is  only  in  case  a  Balkan  situation  were  created  which 
would  be  directed  against  Austria  and  Roumania,  as  also  Greece, 
which  is  affiliated  to  the  latter  country,  that  what  ,s  now  de- 
scribed as  the  Austro-Roumanian  Military  Convention,  which, 
perhaps,  exists  on  paper,  would  acquire  practical  significance. 
At  the  present  juncture  it  is  certainly  a  suspicious  circumstance 
that  Bulgaria.  Servia.  and  Montenegro  should  make  such  ex- 
travagant efforts  to  manifest  their  devotion  to  Russia.    It  is,  for 
the  moment,  impossible  to  say  how  far  this  policy  of  flattery 
will   prove  successful:    but   it  is  conceivable  that   under   Pan- 
slavist  influence  it  may  one  day  lead  to  a  regrettable  disturbance 
of  Austro-Russian  relations." 

But  gradually,  as  Russia  has  resumed  her  old  paramountcy 
in   Bulgaria,  which  Stambolof  destroyed,  this  Anstro-Russ.an 
understanding  has  worn  thin,  and  Russia  has  begun  to  trench 
upon  Austria's  sphere  in  Servia.     The  Tsar's  wedding-present 
to  Queen  Draga  will  be  remembered,  and  I  have  mentioned  his 
intention  to  be  god-father  to  the  heir  who  never  appeared.    The 
late  King  Milan  had  a  persona!  feud  with  Prince  Nicholas  of 
Montenegro,  the  fine  old  mountain-fighter  who  belongs,  body 
and  soul,  to  Russia,  but  King  Alexander  has  just  withdrawn  his 
military  attache  from  Vienna  to  send  him  to  Cettigne,  the  little 
Montenegrin  capital.     In  fact,  the  Russian  press  now  uses  lan- 
guage on  this  subject  which  a  few  years  ago  would  have  caused 
the  immediate  suppression   of   the   newspaper  printing   it.     A 
leading  St.  Petersburg  journal  of  Panslavist  views,  for  instance. 


RUSSIA    AND    THE    NATIONS 


405 


speaks  of  the  meeting  of  the  Grand  Duke  Alexander  Mikhailo- 
vich  and  I'rince  Ferdinand  of  Bnlgaria  as  "  the  canonisation  of 
Russia's  eternal  and  fraternal  friendship  with  her  loyal  kindred 
of  the  Balkan  States  "  (note  the  plural),  and  adds  that  Russia 
has  now  addressed  herself  to  the  task  of  eliminating  most  thor- 
oughly "  the  baneful  Hapsburg  incubus."  not  only  from  the  in- 
dependent Balkan  States,  but  even  from  the  peoples  which  still 
"  languish   under   the  oppressive   sway "    of  Austro-Hungary. 
Frankness  could  go  no  farther,  unless  it  be  in  this  precise  sum- 
mary of  the  Balkan  situation  published  in  the  Sviet:    "  The 
present  grouping  of  the  Powers— that  is  to  say,  the  union  of 
Russia.  Servia,  Bulgaria,  Montenegro,  and  France  in  one  idea 
afi'ords  ample  protection  against  the  union  of  Austria-Hun- 
gary,   Germany,    Roumania,    and    Greece.     Russia   must   keep 
watch  on  the  whole  of  Slavdom,  and  cannot  allow  it  to  be  either 
wholly  or  partly  Germanized  or  Magyarized." 

Rumours  of  wars  form  such  a  large  part  of  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  that  it  is  never  wise  to  attach  much 
importance  to  them  there,  but  beyond  question  there  is  at  the 
present  moment   a  stronger   feeling   of  alarm  among   serious 
observers  than  has  existed  for  many  years,  and  this  is  caused 
not  so  much  by  an  obvious  weakening  of  the  Austro-Russian 
agreement  as  by  the  actual  events  which  have  ensued.     Rus- 
sia has  increased  her  troops  along  the  Pruth— river  of  fateful 
memory— and  in  other  places  and  ways,  including  a  curious  dis- 
])lay  of' her  naval  power  along  the  Black  Sea  coast  and  on  the 
low'er  Danube,  has  shown  an  activity  which  is  difficult  to  recon- 
cile with  a  desire  to  maintain  the  status  quo.    And  the  Austrian 
press  draws  pointed  attention  to  the  frequent  meetings  of  Gen- 
eral Larovary,  the  Roumanian  Commander  in  Chief,  and  Baron 
von  Beck,  chief  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  General  Stafif.     Prob- 
ably neither  on  one  side  nor  the  other  is  there  anything  more 
than  the  development  of  ordinary  military  preparations,  but  even 
these,  amid  so  many  explosive  elements  as  the  Balkans  contain, 


4o6 


ALL    THE    RUSSL^S 


are  causing  a  new  and  distinct  uneasiness  and  putting  a  certain 
strain  upon  the  relations  of  l\nssia  and  Austria. 

There  is,  however,  one  otlier  impending  (|ucstion,  rarely  men- 
tioned yet  in  current  comment,  which  may  affect — and  at  any 
moment — the  relations  of  these  two  nations.     I  allude  to  the 
situatior'  which  will  arise  upon  the  death  of  the  aged  Austrian 
Emperor  and  the  consequent  action  that  Germany  may  take. 
We  enter  here  upon  the  region  of  political  speculation,  though 
not  without  several  dcfniite  and  striking  utterances  to  guide  us. 
The  Austrian  Empire  is  of  course  a  congeries  of  States  of  widely 
differing  origins  and  language,  for  the  most  part  on  bad  terms 
with  one  another,  only  held  together  by  the  purely  political  and 
accidental  bond  of  the  Ilapsburg  Crown  and,  to  an  even  greater 
degree,  by  the  personality  of  the  Emperor  Franz  Josef.     Even 
Hungary,  which  is  luditically  a  se])arate  Kingdom,  having  its 
own  King  crowned  in  Buda,  and  only  sharing  its  foreign  afifairs, 
customs,  and  army  with  Austria,  cannot  agree  with  the  latter 
over  the  periodical  Aitsglcich.     As  for  the  other  races  of  the 
Dual  Empire — Germans,  Czechs  (Bohemian  Slavs),  Poles,  Ru- 
thenians,  Serbs,  Croats  and  the  rest,  all  hope  of  peace  among 
them  is  now  virtually  abandoned.    Every  kind  of  concession  and 
coercion  has  been  apjilied  in  turn,  but  the  abominable  scenes 
of  disorder  in  the  Parliament  at  Vienna  are  a  reflection  of  what 
exists  throughout  the  land.    Austria  is  in  a  state  of  general  ill- 
veiled  rebellion.    The  next  and  only  remaining  step  will  be  the 
suppression   by  the  Crown   of  representative  institutions,  fol- 
lowed by  absolute  government. 

Now  the  great  racial  struggle  is  in  Bohemia,  between  two 
milHon  Germans  and  four  million  Czechs.  Other  warring  in- 
terests are  comparatively  unimportant.  The  Czechs  are  of 
course  backed  by  their  fellow  Slavs  in  the  Empire,  and  the  Ger- 
mans by  Vienna,  with  its  almost  exclusively  Hebrew  and  ex- 
tremely influential  capitalist  ring.      Between  Czechs  and   Ger- 


RUSSIA   AND   THE    NATIONS  407 

mans  nothing  less  than  a  deadly  hatred  prevails,  and  both  are 

disloval  to  Austria. 

Each  of  the  rivals,  it  must  next  be  observed,  is  mcluded  m 
a  great  politico-racial  movement  outside  its  own  country.    Rus- 
sian Panslavism  of  course  includes  the  Czechs,  though  they  do 
not  altogether  reciprocate  the  feeling,  as  Panslavism  carries  with 
it  the  doctrines  of  the  Russian  Greek  Church,  and  the  Czechs 
are  bv  no  means  all  orthodox.    But  they  are  infinitely  nearer  to 
this  than  to  German  Lutheranism.     What,  now,  is  the  corre- 
spondin<r  movement  which  includes  the  Germans?     A  precisely 
similar,  though  not  nearly  so  well  known  aspiration,  called  Pan- 
Germanism,    already   wide-spread   and   deeply-rooted   both    in 
Germanv  and  Austria.     It  has  its  great  leaders,  its  organisation, 
its  newspapers,  its  famous  atlas,  its  flag:  and  unless  many  signs 
fail   it  possesses  the  sympathy  and  enjoys  the  support  of  no  less 
a  power  than  the  Kaiser  himself.     Its  racial  object  is  simp  e : 
Germany  to  include  all  German-speaking  countries.     Its  polit- 
ical objects  are  equally  simple  and  strikingly  concrete.     Sir 
Rowland  Blennerhassett  describes  them  as  follows :    '  This  party 
now  openly  desires  the  break-up  of  the  Austrian  Empire,  the 
annexation  of  all  the  German  portions  of  Austria  by  German>% 
and  the  extension  of  the  German  Empire  to  the  Adriatic.      And 
another  well-informed  writer  upon  this  topic,  Mr.  W  .  B.  Uul- 
field,  savs :    "  The  successful  prosecution  of  German  ambmon 
means  that  Trieste  is  to  be  a  German  port,  and  the  Adriatic  a 
German  lake,"  and  with  this  "  the  imposition  of  a  universa 
monarchv  in  German  lands."    And  the  latter  truly  remarks  tha 
it  is  impossible  to  read  these  words  which  the  Kaiser  spoke 
at  Bonn  on  April  24th  in  any  but  a  Pan-German  sense :      ^^  hy 
did  the  old  Empire  come  to  naught?    Because  the  old  Empire 
was  not  founded  on  a  strong  national  basis.    The  universal  idea 
of  the  old  Roman  Kingdom  did  not  allow  the  German  nation 
developments  in  a  German  national  sense.    The  esscni,al  of  he 
nation  is  a  demarcation  outwardly  corresponding  to  the  personality 


4o8 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


of  a  people  and  its  raeial  peeidiarityr  One  must  be  stupider 
even  than  Heine  said  the  Germans  of  his  day  were,  to  misun- 
derstand such  a  plain  hint  as  this,  and,  indeed,  the  heir  to  the 
throne  of  Austria-Hungary,  the  Archduke  I-  rdinand,  under- 
stood it  well  enough,  for  he  retorted  in  a  si)eech  which  startled 
Europe,  calling  upon  the  Roman  Catholic  forces  of  the  h:m- 
pire  to  rally  to  its  defence.  For  this  racial  and  political  strug- 
gle involves  a  religious  contiict  also.  The  Pan-German  propa- 
ganda is  evangelical,  and  one  of  its  wings  is  the  Los  von  Rom 
—"Cut  loose  from  Rome !  "—movement,  directed  against  the 
Catholicism  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg  and  its  adherents,  and 
the  great  majority  of  the  Czechs.  Dr.  Pjigel,  one  of  the  Czech 
leaders,  characterised  this  movement  by  the  remark  that  as  (kr- 
many  has  no  use  for  Austrian  Catholics  she  is  trying  to  convert 
Austria  to  Protestantism,  and  Dr.  Lueger,  the  famous  Anti- 
Semite  burgomaster  of  \'ienna,  declares  that  by  proselytism  it 
is  intended  to  facilitate  the  absorption  of  Austria  by  the  (icr- 

man  Empire. 

This  politico-religious  propaganda  is  carried  on  in  Germany 
with  a  frankness  almost  amounting  to  effrontery,  for  in  the 
Grand  Duchy  of  Saxe-Weimar  a  house-to-house  collection  for 
the  Los  von  Rom  movement  has  been  permitted,  and  at  the 
recent  General  Assembly  of  the  Evangelical  AlHance  held  at 
Breslau  a  resolution  was  passed  beginning  as  follows:  "The 
fourteenth  General  Assembly  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  ex- 
presses its  grateful  satisfaction  at  the  blessed  progress  of  the 
evangelical  movement  in  Austria  "  !  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  heir  to  the  throne  of  Austria,  the  strongest  remaining  royal 
support  of  the  Papacy,  should  sound  a  call  to  arms  in  face  of 
such  an  attack,  from  beyond  the  frontier,  on  both  the  dynasty 
and  the  official  faith  of  his  country. 

If  the  ambition  of  Germany  has  really  assumed  these  gigan- 
tic proportions,  the  situation  in  which  it  must  seek  realisation 
may  arise  at  the  death  of  a  monarch  now  aged  seventy-one.     It 


RUSSIA   AND    THE    NATIONS  409 

is  therefore  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  seriousness  of  the  pros- 
pect, or  indeed  the  extreme  delicacy  and  danger  of  the  inter- 
national complication  that  would  be  thus  produced.     Russia 
is  not  prepared,  either  from  a  purely  military  or  from  a  financial 
point  of  view,  to  fight  Germany;   but  such  considerations  have 
never  kept  her  back  vet,  and  it  may  reasonably  be  doubted 
whether  she  would  not  plunge  the  whole  Balkan  Peninsula  into 
war,  and  perhaps  even  the  whole  of  Europe,  rather  than  see  her 
mightiest  military  neighbour  so  vastly  aggrandised  in  territory, 
in  population,  in  wealth,  and  in  sea-power.     At  any  rate    we 
see  here  Panslavism  claiming  the  Austrian  Czechs,  and  Pan- 
Germanism  claiming  the  Austrian  Germans,  and  this  definite 
rivalrv  alreadv  constitutes  one  of  the  most  momentous  and  puz- 
zling'factors  in  the  relations  of  Russia  with  the  nations. 


Two  other  countries  may  be  more  briefly  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  Russia.     There  has  been  for  long  in  the  Lmted 
States  a  belief  that   Russia  is  a  genuine,   sympathetic  friend, 
moved   by  admiration   for  the  American  people  and  their  in- 
stitutions.    This   has   grown  up   chiefly,   1   suppose,   from   the 
apocryphal  narratives  of  the  readiness  of  Russia  to  intervene  on 
the  side  of  right  during  the  war  of  the  Rebelhon.     Therefore 
the  American  people  have  frequently  made  public  profession  of 
their  friendship  for  Russia,  which  Russia,  needless  to  say,  has 
cordially  accepted,  for  who  would  refuse  such  a  gift?     But  the 
whole  belief   is  a  political   soap-bubble.     It   is   nothing  but   a 
bright  film  in  the  ether.     Russia  likes  to  appear  a  friend  of  the 
United   States,  because  the  effect  of  that  is  to  postpone  any 
co-operation    of    England    and    America    in    world    af¥airs-a 
contingency  which  Russia  is  not  the  only  Power  to  fear.     But 
beyond  this,   she   seldom  thinks  of  the   United   States,  except 
to  admire  and  envy  its  vast  prosperity;  among  the  official  and 
reactionary  class,  to  regard  its  institutions  with  profound  dis- 


410 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


approval;  to  anticipate  tlie  time  when  enoup^h  cotton  will  be 
grown  in  Turkestan  to  make  it  safe  for  her  to  put  a  prohibitive 
tax  upon  every  American  l)ale;  or  to  wish  that  the  American 
billionaires  would  invest  a  few  spare  millions  in  oovernment 
guaranteed  4  per  cent,  bonds  of  Russian  railways — and,  let 
me  add,  if  I  were  a  billionaire  1  should  meet  the  Russian  wish 
in  this  respect,  for  there  is  no  better  investment  at  such  an  in- 
terest in  Europe.  Beyond  these  things,  America  does  not  exist 
for  Russia,  except  when  a  troublesome  Secretary  of  State  puts 
a  series  of  direct  ((uestions  about  Manchuria  or  the  Open  Door, 
and  insists  upon  answers  in  writing.  In  fact.  Russia,  with  no 
ill-will  at  all,  thinks  about  America  precisely  what  a  great  re- 
ligious autocracy  ;;///.s7  think  al)out  a  huge  secular  democracy 
four  thousand  miles  away.  The  rest  is  mere  flag-wagging,  and 
for  my  own  part,  when  1  see  an  American  newspaper  lauding 
Russian  love  for  the  Ignited  States,  I  cannot  help  asking  my- 
self, knowing  what  I  know,  why  that  particular  newspaper  goes 
out  of  its  way  to  disseminate  that  ])articular  view. 

About  Japan,  on  the  contrary,  Russia  thinks  night  and  day. 
When,  with  the  helj)  of  iM-ance  and  (ieriuany,  she  had  uncere- 
moniously kicked  Japan  out  of  Port  Arthur  and  off  the  main- 
land of  China,  Russia  probably  thought  that  she  had  done  with 
the  little  island- hanpire  for  a  long  time.  But  Ja|)an  thought 
otherwise,  atul  proceeded  to  lay  otit  a  programme  of  naval  and 
military  expansion  due  to  luature  a  short  time  before  the  Trans- 
Siberian  Railway  was  to  be  completed.  Many  things  have 
conspired  to  hinder  the  progress  of  the  great  railway,  l)ut  Japan's 
military  and  naval  schemes  have  gone  steadily  onward,  in  si)ite 
of  all  fmancial  ditbculties.  To-day  she  has  a  magnificent  navy, 
including  soiue  of  the  most  powerftil  battle-shij)s  afloat,  stronger 
than  any  tleet  Russia  could  safely  send  to  the  Far  ILast,  while 
her  armv  is  at  least  equal  in  ntimbers.  and  superii^-  in  e(|uip- 
ment  and  scientific  training  to  the  land  forces  Russia  could 
muster  on  the  Eastern  side  of  her  vast  dominions.     And  be- 


RUSSIA   AND    THE    NATIONS  ^n 

tween  the  two  nations  there  lies  Korea— a  territorial  deadlock, 
a  political  antinomy.  Russia  cannot  allow  Japan  to  have  it,  for 
that  would  give  her  Eastern  border  a  land  frontier  to  a  mili- 
tary Power.  Japan  cannot  allow  Russia  to  have  it,  for  that  would 
leave  her  island-home  almost  within  gunshot  of  the  troops  and 
the  naval  bases  of  the  Colossus  of  the  North,  and  deprive  her 
of  an  outlet  for  her  overflowing  population.  At  present  Japan 
is  gaining,  for  her  influence  and  her  people  and  her  trade  are 
increasing  in  Korea  every  day. 

Russia  has  not  failed  to  propose  a  division  of  interests  to 
Japan.    The  latter  was  assured  that  war  with  Russia  meant  ruin, 
whereas   an   understanding  meant  a   long  era   of  tranquillity. 
Japan,  it  was  proposed,  should  have  a  free  hand  in  Korea,  and 
in  return  should  undertake  not  to  impede  Russia  in  Alanchuria. 
But  Russia  must  have  a  naval  base  on  the  south  coast  of  Korea, 
as  a   half-wav  house  between   Vladivostok   and   Port  Arthur. 
With  striking  unanimity  the  Japanese  press  has  declined  these 
semi-oft^cial  overtures.    In  the  first  place,  they  say,  Korea  does 
not  belong  to   Russia  to  give  away;    on  the  contrary,  other 
Powers  are  interested  in  the  Far  East,  and  Japan  and  Russia 
have  a  treatv  guarding  each  of  them  against  the  aggression  of 
the  other  in  ihat  country.    And  a  Russian  naval  base  m  Japanese 
waters  is  preciselv  what  Japan  most  strenuously   objects  to. 
Finallv,  Japan  does  not  wish  Manchuria  to  be  closed  to  trade, 
and  does  not  herself  desire  to  annex  Korea,  being  quite  satis- 
fied with  its  present  status  and  her  own  position  there.       And 
as  if  to  clinch  this  last  argument,  comes  the  news  that  Korea 
has  ceded  to  Japan,  for  a  special  settlement,  650  acres,  formerly 
surveved  and  pegged  out  by  a  Russian  warship,  at  Cha-pok-pho, 
near  Ma-sam-pho,  to  be  policed  by  Japan. 

It  is  a  verv  delicate  situation,  and  Russia  would  give  a  good 
deal  for  a  diplomatic  escape  from  this  naval  and  military  anxiety. 

*  See  an   interesting  letter   from   the   well-known   Tokyo    correspondent  of    TA. 
Times,  November  8,  1901. 


r 


412 


ALL   THE    RUSSL\S 


Her  view  of  it  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  best  part  of  her 
navy  is  in  the  Far  East.  Japan,  too,  would  be  thankful  to  be 
relieved  from  the  financial  1)urden  thus  imposed  upon  her.  But 
the  question  of  the  closing  of  Manchuria  to  non-Russian  trade, 
with  all  its  consequences,  blocks  the  way,  more  even  than  that 
of.  the  status  of  Korea.  Russia  is  unlikely  to  forego  this,  and 
Japan  will  not  forego  her  freedom  to  join  any  international 
action  that  may  ultimately  be  taken— indeed  she  will  not  do 
anything  which  would  prevent  her  from  taking  single-handed 
action,  if  her  fate  should  so  cast  the  die. 

Such,  then,  in  necessarily  brief  outline  and  with  one  excep- 
tion, are  the  relations  of  Russia  as  a  great  whole,  with  the 
different  nations  surrounding  her,  upon  whose  attitudes  and 
actions  her  future  must  in  large  part  depend.  It  will  have  been 
seen  that  the  problems  awaiting  her — perhaps  close  at  hand — 
are  neither  few  nor  simple,  but  that  they  will  demand  all  her 
judgment,  all  her  diplomacy,  all  her  prestige,  and  possibly  all 
her  resources,  to  solve  them  to  her  advantage,  while  some  of 
them  are  so  bound  up  with  her  national  security  and  well-being 
that  a  mistake  in  handling  them  might  throw  her  back  for 
generations.  The  exception  is,  of  course,  the  future  course  of 
events  between  Russia  and  the  British  Empire,  and  this,  with 
certain  broad  conclusions  about  Russia  which  must  affect  it,  is 
naturally  the  subject  of  my  concluding  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
RUSSIA  AND  ENGLAND 

1      1     f  ot.rl  o-reatest  of  Russia's  foreign 

THERE  remains  the  last  and  greatest  oi 
,  •   .      i:no-land-what  of  this  long-exibtent  and 
relationships.     Lnglana     xv 
1    •   nirx-^^     Is  not  mutual  enmity  rooted  m  me 
traditional  rivalr   .     I.  ^o  ^^^^^^  ^^^^  ^^.^  ^.^^^^^^^ 

of  both  peoples.  J^^  ^^  \^.^^,  ^,,,,  ..ery  night,  and  wake 
of  predestined  ^^^/"^  ^^^^^^'^^^^.^^^  ,pon  their  pillows?  Has 
every  n.orning  to  ^^ ^^^;^^  ^^  languages  to  show 

not  a  library  of  ^^^^^^^^^^^^  ...^covite  must  inevitably 
to  demonstra  ion  that  Briton  ^  ^^^  ^^^^^^^ 

come  to  the  death-grip?    In  tact,  are 

by  the  eternal  nature  of  things— 

I  Have  ion.  heUl  and  advocated  ^^^^J^^^.  Tat 
now  that  I  have  seen  nutch  more  of  Rt,s     J^      P  ^^^ 
-en  confin.ea  ah.ost  to  t  e  P  ;^  ,of  c.ta  ^^^.^^^^^^^^^^^^  ,^^_ 
foundly  convniced  tha    a  go  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^^^^^^ 

tween  the  tNVO  nations  is  not  onl>  ^^^^_ 

but  also  well  within  the  range  of  PO     ^ dit  .    ^^  he  ^^^^^^^^^ 

,err,s  government  was  ^^^^^^^^J  ,,  p.nage. 
^vas  virtually  m  sight.       ^ous  son  m  ^ 

-1  a  great  Rtissian  -^^^^^^  dossing  the  situa- 
offica,  friend  of  -^  ^  ;  °;;  ,,  ,,e  latest  books  on  the 
uon.     Moreover,  n^'^^*  1^1\"  ;\'  ^    ^,,,  „,„ber  of  people  shar- 

-^'^^"/^^  .'^'""ZXTZL..  and  if  our  statesmen 
ino-   th  s  opinion  has  largei\ 


''**« 


414 


ALL    im:    RLSSL-\S 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


4^5 


had  been  stronger  (and  Noun.^cr)  men,  we  shonld  ere  this  have 
been  on  the  road  to  an  nnderstan(hn,o.  for  Lord  Sahsl)ury  has 
confessed   that    the    anti-Rnssian.    pru-Tnrkish    poHcy    of    Lord 
Beaconsfield  was  "putting;-  onr  money  on  the  wrono-  horse;" 
and    Mr.    Bah'onr   has    pointedly    remarked    that    "  A^ia    is   bii; 
enon^di   for  both."     Their  words  tlew   np,  bnt  their  thonghts 
remained  below,  and  officially  we  are  as  snspicions  of  Russia  as 
ever,  and  Russia  is  eciually  disgusted  with  our  unformed,  incaL 
culable,   spasmodic  policy.     Therefore  she  goes  calmly  ahead, 
doing  what  she  pleases,  taking  what  she  wants,  knowing  that 
in  all  probability  when  England  alone  desires  or  oi)poses  any- 
thing, a  few  acid  despatches  and  a  little  calling  of  names  in 
Parliament  will  be  the  worst  she  has  to  fear.     In  diplomacy 
Russia  plays  a  strong  game,  and   plays  it   sometimes  without 
scruples;    but   she   both   respects  and  likes  an  op])onent  who 
plays  his  own  game  strongly  too,  and  she  does  not  demand  in 
others  a  higher  standard  of  scrupulousness  than  she  follows  her- 
self.    Before  I  had  set  foot  in  European  Russia  my  conviction 
rested  upon  examination  of  the  various  (Hvergent  and  conver- 
gent interests  of  the  two  countries;    to-day  it  rests  also  upon 
positive  knowledge  that  the  ablest  and  most  powerful  states- 
men of  Russia  would  welcome  a  detnute  and  far-reaching  recon- 
ciliation and  adjustment,  if  tliey  could  be  convinced  of  British 
sincerity    and    consistency.      Anvbody,    moreover,    who    knows 
what  the  Noz'oyc  Vrcmya  is  will  see  what  a  change  has  come 
over  Russian  opinion  when   that  journal   publishes  a  series  of 
lengthy  articles   from   the   pen  of  M.   Siromyatnikof,  a  much- 
respected   publicist,   advocating  an   Anglo-Russian   agreement 
and  warning  his  fellow-countryruen  against  the  ''  costly  assist- 
ance  of   the    '  honest    brokers  '    in    P.erlin."      At    any   rate,   the 
greatest  personal  forces  in   Russia  are  on  the  side  of  such   a 
I)olicy,  upon  the  condition  1  have  mentioned  above.     I  assert 
this  as  a  fact  within  my  own  knowledge. 

There  are  only  three  parts  of  the  world  where  serious  ob- 


,,ades  are  heUl  to  exist-Ch,na,   India,  -^^^--'  ^    ^  ^ 
of  these  calls  for  distinct  consideration.     In  China    Ru..ia  has 
vl    any  got  what  she  wants,  namely,  the  control  ot  Manchuria 
r  a  fre'e  rail-route  to  a  fortified  harbour  ^^^^^    ■ 

The  ^---^^^;::^^  ^:::u- tr  Lr h^enJi 

will  be  m  some  iorm  or  otner,  uiul  ^^ 

'     »,.  l>v  .1,=  *a.l.  ol  Li  H,.ng-cta..g.  «ho  was  a  pa.d  Rus- 

,      .,„   in  the  „e<.otiatlons  ior  the  settlement,  was 

"Tas  ,.«.....  .lone  bel"".  »">'  -  =""»  '""f^  "f° 

;,,,,,.  l,e  would'     The  tmnttfactttring  nations  oi  the 

T     ■,>,.,-       grave  nt.stak.  i.  .hey  perntit  Russia  to 

7  :  Ma  c,t  r  a  to':„n.R„ss,an  trade,  as  .hey  will  discover  ,n 

;  :;    'so  i:;,:  d„  .hey  ca,e  .or  the,,  own  co»™ercial  intet^ts 

<'r--n;.'''°s,:r';::re.— s;Vor:;'Brri: 

still  unreconciled  to  ^'^^J^^'  ^^,   ,,,,g,   „egotia- 

,etween  «;-- J^^,^  r:„  7,  subject.  Of  the  conduct  of 
,ions  are  s t.ll  ^^^^ToLs.  question  during  the  past  f^ve 
British  policy  '^ ';<^J;'^  .^^,j \^  .peak:  I  believe  that  the 
years  I  can  hardly  trust  m>selt  ^    P  ^^^^^^^ 

historian  of  the  next  generation  .ill  regard  't  as  S 

reelect   of  the  national  interests  within  his  1^>  «-  "^^^^ 
negieci  ^^^^  virtually  has  -Man 

,,  all  aPP-a"ces  t^  e       id  ^^^^^^^^  ^^^^_ 

chuna,  and  ^"^^^ ^^,,  by  a  semi-official  Rus- 
""""•  '""  Zia  being  thus  palpably  replete  in  China,  there 
Zr^JT^  "-ulty  ■:  persuading  her  to  adnrit  the 


See    riu  P.-OPU  and  PoUtus  of  the  Far  East,  p.  246. 


1) 


.*--»-••  '^v^' 


.1 -... 


41  6 


ALL     I  HI      Rl  SSL\S 


fact.  The  losers  in  the  _i:\'inie  nia\-  i^erliaps  find  <>  niic  cnn-iv 
lation  in  the  retleetiuii  that  Russia — a>  ?t,)nie  of  her  ^tateNinen 
keenly  realise — has  inidertaken  a  responsibility  the  end  of  which 
is  not  yet.  Idie  "yellow  peril"  exi.^ts  in  tnuh  for  her.  with 
thousands  of  miles  of  frontier  coterminous  with  (.'hina,  and 
to  he  colonised  by  scattered  settlements  of  Russian  |)easants 
hardly  superior  in  cixilisation  to  the  ("hinese,  with  whom  thev 
may  well  develop  relationships  far  more  intimate  than  will  he 
pleasing  to  their  rulers.  And  Cdiina  has  protited  in  military 
matters  from  her  late  experience;  she  has  by  no  means  lost 
prestige  in  her  own  eyes — rather  the  reverse;  she  is  arming 
with  speed  and  with  knowledge;  and  Russia,  with  its  sources 
of  human  and  material  sup})ly  on  the  other  side  of  the  world, 
is  her  neighbour.  If  one  were  looking  for  a  motto  for  Rus- 
sia's triumphal  relations  to  two  Chinese  provinces,  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  would  not  be,  Habes  tota  quod  mente  pctisti,  infelix. 


I  turn  to  India,  where  most  people  believe  that  the  real 
strain  and  danger  between  the  British  and  Russian  Empires 
lie.  The  intention  of  Russia  to  invade  India  has  l)een  for  gen- 
erations an  accepted  commonplace,  due  probably  most  of  all  to 
the  idea  expressed  in  Sir  Henry  Raw  linson's  remark  that  "  any 
one  who  traces  the  movements  of  Russia  toward  India  on  the 
map  of  Asia  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  resemblance  w  hich 
these  movements  bear  to  the  operations  of  an  armv  opening 
parallels  against  a  beleaguered  fortress."  This  is  very  true,  but 
it  must  be  remembered,  first,  that  some  of  these  movements 
date  back  a  considerable  time,  when  the  situation  of  Russia  in 
world-politics  was  very  different  from  what  it  is  to-dav;  sec- 
ond, that  in  many  of  these  movements  commercial  develop- 
ment was  beyond  question  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  aim — an 
aim  wdiich,  l)e  it  added,  results  have  abundantly  justified;  and 
third,  that  others  of  these  movements  have  been  forced  uj^on 


\\' 


RUSSL\    AM)    ENGLAND 


417 


Russia  In  tlie  necessity  of  keeping  order  beyond  her  borders 
a  natural  and  inevitable  process  to  which  much  of  the  ex- 
pan-ion  of  the  P^ritish  lunpire  has  also  been  due. 

This  (juestion   of  Russia's  intentions  with  regard  to  India 
lias  l)een  present  to  my  mind  in  every  conversation  I  have  ever 
held  with  a  Russian  whose  opinion  was  worth  hearing.     I  have 
endeavoured  to  study  every  fact  bearing  upon  it,  and  after  long 
consideration  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  colossal 
and  perilous  undertaking  of  an  armed  invasion  of  India,  with 
a  view  to  conquest,  is  not  part  of  the  plan  of  any  really  respon- 
sible Russian,  either  statesman  or  soldier.     Of  course  a  great 
many   Russians,  nearly  all  their  newspapers,  and  a  large  ma- 
joritv  of  Russian  officers,  believe  not  only  that  Russia  intends 
to  do  this,  but  that  she  will.     In  Russia,  however,  public  opin- 
ion and  newspapers  count  for  very  little,  and  ninety-nine  per 
cent,  of  officers  not  at  all,  so  far  as  national  policy  is  concerned. 
It  would  be  roughly  true  to  say  that  every  Russian  officer  up 
to  the  rank  of  colonel  believes  firmly  that  the  invasion  of  India 
is  possible,  probable,  and  desirable,  wdiile  everyone  above  the 
rank  of  colonel  has  learned  that  as  a  military  operation  it  is 
practically  impossible,  and  that  as  a  political  move  it  would  be 
the   climax   of   folly.      In   Central  Asia  almost   every   Russian 
knows  to  a  month  or  two  when  he  will  get  his  marching  orders 
for  Kabul — the  time  is  generally  close  at  hand;    in  St.  Peters- 
buro-  the  verv  few  men  wdio  really  influence  the  course  of  Rus- 
sian  affairs  will  not  waste  their  scanty  leisure  in  discussing  the 
question  with  you— they  sincerely  regard  you  as  quite  an  out- 
sider, diplomatically  speaking,  if  you  desire  to  raise  it.     I  have 
talked  with  some  of  these   really  responsible  men,  and  I   sm- 
cerely  believe  the  most  influential  of  all  would  not  have  India 
at   a  gift.     Above  them   all,  too,  is  the  Tsar,  compared  with 
whose  decision  little  else  matters,  and  his  Majesty  is  a  man  of 
peace,  not  only  from  the  deep  conviction  that  Russia,  like  other 
countries,  needs  the  sunshine  of  peace  for  her  own  growth,  but 


41  ^ 


ALL    1111.    RLSSLAS 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


419 


al-o  from  the  liii^licr^t  iiiural  and  iiiiiiianitanaii  rn.aixa-.     I  p<'n 
tliis  point  tliere  arc  not  two  opinion^;  anKmu"  tla-c  m   a  posi- 
tion to  know.     M<irco\-cr,  if  Rn^-ia  had  dc-n-edi  to  make  a  ni^txe 
toward    India  why   has  she  remained  inactive  (hnanu   two  >ears 
of  perfect   opi)ortnnit>  ?      \\"e   ha\e  had   no  army    in    luii^dand; 
onr  armv  in  Africa  conld  not  >pare  a  man;    our  army  in  Iniha, 
though   more    seasoned   and   ])etter  trained   owini^-   to   its   pro- 
longed absence  from  home,  has  not  been  at  its  normal  peace 
stren<:^th;    the  entire  Continent  has  been  rai^ino^  and  ima,^ining 
vain  thino-s  acrainst  tis;    we  were  without  an  ally  in  the  world; 
the  death  of  the  Amir  of  Afi^hanistan  made  everythinir  in  that 
country  uncertain  for  a  moment;    never  was  there — never  can 
there  ai^ain  be — such  a  chance  for  an  unscrupulous  enemy  to 
strike  at  us  by  land.     And  in  spite  of  all  the  warring  naval 
schools  we  cannot  defend  the  Northwest  frontier  by  sea.     Yet 
Russia  has  not  shown  the  slightest  desire  to  take  advantage  of 
our  embarrassment  or  our   defeats,  and  it   is  certain  that  her 
commercial  crisis  would  not  have  kept  her  1)ack  if  she  thought 
her  national  policy   demanded  action.      1    venture  to   say  that 
the  Emperor  of  Russia  and  his  princii)al  advisers  have  by  their 
attitude   since   October,    1899,    given    England   a   striking  and 
unequivocal   proof  of  the   absence  of  any  hostile  intention,   if 
not  of  the  presence  of  positive  friendliness.     I  should  be  happy 
if  I  could  point  to  any  similar  evidence  of  British  consideration 

for  Russia. 

The  truth  is,  in  my  opinion,  that  Russia  regards  her  posi- 
tion on  the  Indian  frontier  as  a  lever  to  bring  pressure  to  bear, 
whenever  necessary,  upon  England  in  other  matters.  If  the  re- 
lations between  the  two  countries  grow  strained  l)eyond  a  cer- 
tain point,  you  hear  of  troops  from  the  Caucasus  crossing  the 
Caspian;  if  the  situation  gets  worse,  you  learn  the  precise  num- 
ber of  troops  of  all  arms  gathered  at  Kushkinski  Post  on  the 
Afghan  frontier;  if  a  serious  rupture  occur,  or  were  about  to 
occur,  I  should  expect  the  Russians  to  seize  Herat,  which  they 


I 


cuuld  du  witlKait  mncli  diiYiculty.*  Then  there  would  be  peace, 
or  war  all  round.  I  have  no  (lou1)t  Ivussia  is  ready  enough  to 
use  tlie  powerful  leverage  conferred  by  her  position  on  the 
Afghan  frontier,  and  she  would  be  foolish,  in  her  own  interest, 
not  to  do  so.f  BtU  the  notion  of  invading  India  to  annex  and 
administer  it  does  not  seriously  exist  in  Russia. 

It  would,  from  any  point  of  view,  including  the  merely 
technical  one  of  men  and  transports,  be  far  beyond  Russia's 
means,  considering  the  vast  tasks  she  has  undertaken  and  the 
vast  aims  she  cherishes  in  other  parts  of  the  w^orld.  Finally, 
this  must  be  considered.  India  no  longer  looms  in  Russia's 
eyes  as  the  El  Dorado  of  the  world;  she  sees  plainly  the  prob- 
lems of  finance  and  population  that  are  assuming  such  grave 
dimensions  there;  she  observes  the  almost  mechanical  recru- 
descence of  famine;  she  realises  what  the  strain  of  adminis- 
tering India  is  likely  to  be  for  England  in  years  to  come;  she 
has  not  the  least  desire  to  add  that  burden  to  the  many  she 
alreadv  has  to  bear. 

Therefore  I  hold  that  India  ofYers  no  insurmountable  or 
even  serious  obstacle  to  a  solid  and  friendly  understanding  be- 
tween England  and  Russia,  covering  all  points  where  their 
national  interests  appear  now  to  be  at  variance. 

*  On  the  other  hand,  a  friend  possessing  unusual  sources  of  military  information 
assures  me  that  the  Afghans  could  delay  the  Russian  seizure  of  Herat  for  a  consider- 
able time— for  as  long,  he  believes,  as  it  would  take  an  Indian  force  to  reach  there, 
if  the  Afghans  desired  us  to  assist  them  in  that  part.  The  late  Amir,  he  adds,  had 
a  force  in  and  near  Herat  of  22,000  men,  with  modern  armament,  especially  in  guns. 

t  When  I  returned  from  Central  Asia  during  the  South  African  war  I  was  assured 
in  oftkial  military  circles  in  London  that  large  bodies  of  Russian  troops  had  been  con- 
veyed across  the  Caspian  Sea  or  forwarded  by  railway  to  the  frontier.  In  reply  I 
informed  them  that  I  myself  had  been  travelling  up  and  down  the  line  between  the 
Caspian  and  Merv  during  those  very  weeks,  talking  freely  with  all  sorts  of  people, 
and  had  not  seen  or  heard  of  a  single  man  being  moved-except  one  shipload  of  re- 
cruits always  sent  at  that  time  of  year,  very  raw  and  very  sea-sick.  The  canard  does 
not  nest  in  newspaper  of^ces  alone. 

Readers  of  Colonel  C.  ?:.  Vate's  Khurasan  and  Sistan  will  remember  that  a  high 
Russian  officer  (since  stated  by  Major  Vate  to  have  been  a  Minister  of  State)  said  to 
him  of  the  Merv-Kushk  railway,  "We  are  building  it  to  protect  our  interests  m 
China  and  the  P)Osphorus." 


4'2o 


AIJ.     I  ill      lU  ShlAS 


TIrtc  rcinaiii:^  IVi-'^i;!.  :i'v\  here  flu-  (|iu'-tir)n  i-  one  of  nuu;li 
difFiciilu  and  pcrplcxit) ,  iin-r^iiiK  -^'veral  i-ik-  ni  ihu  -realcM 
inipnrtai!  :c  ami  ranire,  M-a-cnvrr,  unak.'  iho^e  r>t  i  lima  aiai 
India,  It  1-  nnc  with  which  haiL;!i-h  la/aders  arc  ii*.!  \cl  lainihar. 
It  must  tluTcfnrc  he  c«  ni-aUaa'u   ni   ^^aiie  aciait. 

Russia  (K-sirr-  tn  hcconic  iiiiMro—  of  rcr.-ia.  and  to  possess 
an  cAitlct  upt)n  the  Pei'-ian  (  nih.  and  bhe  i-  deiernnned  to  n-e 
all  her  slren,i;th  to  earr\  out  hef  de-ire.  That  i<  tlie  poxtulate. 
She  has  nowhere,  su  far  a>  1  know,  -et  forth  ni  dictail  either  the 
('Touiid   or  tlie   itistificatinn  of  tin-  de-ire.      I    ha\e  alread}'   de- 

scribed  some  of  her  rea-oii-  at  len-th -in  fact.  I   i)elieve  1  have 

stated  her  ease,  as  re.L;ard-  one  a.-pect  of  it.  more  fnllv  than  she 
has  ever  stated  it  her>elf.  Her  writer-  n-nall\  eonlme  them- 
selves to  as.^everatini;  the  fact,  adduem--  no  lietter  ar^i;aiments 
tium  "  hi.^torie  aim,"  "national  necessitw"  or  "  inevita1)le  ex- 
pansion." Wdien  they  descend  to  detail  they  are  often  on  very 
unsafe  ground,  ddie  latest  of  them  merely  remarks  that  "  Rtl^- 
sia  .  .  .  must  be  the  predominant  Power  when  her  |)olitieal 
security  and  vital  interests  are  involved."  *  It  is  needless  to 
point  out  that  lupoiand  cotild  make  out  a  better  case  upon 
tiiese  two  grounds  for  her  predcMiiinance  in  the  Persian  (mlf. 
The  St.  Petersburg  Bourse  Gacctfc,  under^tof^d  to  express  the 
views  of  M.  de  Witte  himself,  contained  a  ty})ical  Russian  state- 
ment of  claim  twa)  months  ago.  as  follow.^: 

The  final  decision  rests  neither  with  lai^land  nor  Germany  nor  with  Turkey, 
which  reckons  upon  the  support  of  the  latter  Power,  t3ut  with  Russia,  whose 
merchant  navy  is  now  in  re.c:ular  communication  with  the  ports  of  the  Persian 
Gulf.  It  was  not  in  order  to  secure  for  the  British  Fleet  this  important  strate.i(ic 
point  on  the  shore  of  the  Persian  ( ailf  that  Russia  has  latterly  devoted  immense 
capital  to  the  economic  revival  of  Persia  and  that  Russian  diplomacy  has  done 
so  much  to  emancipate  western  Persia  from  British  servitude.  Inasmuch  as 
Russia's  diplomacy  roused  her  neii^hbour  Persia  to  a  new  existence  and  strenj^th- 
ened  the  moral  and  economic  link  between  that  country  and  Russia,  it  put  an 
end  once  for  all  to  the  idle  talk  about  dividing  Persia  into  a  northern  sphere  of 


*    a 


A  Russian  Diplomatist,"  A'///.v;,// A^t/Vtc'.  January,   1902,  p.  6S7. 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


421 


influenre  hclon-m:,^  to  Russia  and  a  southern  sphere  of  influence  belonging  to 

1  :nL!'an(l.  There  can  hv  no  division  of  spheres  <.f  mtiuence.  Persia,  together 
,,.an  ihe  waters  that  baaie  its  shores,  must  remain  the  ob:ect  of  Russian  mate- 
rial and  moral  protection. 

Thi^  magniloquent  ahti^ion  to  the  fiasco  of  the  Koriiilut  and  to 
'•  Prltl^^h  servitude"  is.  it  niii-^t  be  confessed,  rather  ])Oor  stnfT, 
^^^^  -^  !<,  t]^e  best  we  ,^et.  Tlierefore,  as  Russia  does  not  state 
her  case,  we  nnist  state  it  for  her. 

Russia's  desire  fur  Tersia,  besides  the  possession  of  the  future 
raihvav  route  to  the  East  which   I  have  previously  described, 
i<   part   of   her    -eneral   and   vague,   but   perfectly    estabhshed, 
niovement  toward  the  warm  water.     She  feels  suffocated,  and 
is  strugglino-  for  air— which  in  her  case  means  sea  outlets.     She 
has  secured  one  in  the  Ear  East  free  from  ice;   she  has  created 
another  m  her  own  North;   she  will  beyond  question  force  open 
the   Dardanelles  for  her  Black  Sea  fleet;    and  to  complete  the 
circle-to   open    a  window   in   every   wall-she   must   have   an 
egress  into  the  seas  of  the  ^luldle  East-the  Mediterranean  of 
the  future  struggle.     And,  be  it  remembered,  the  strength  of 
her  desire  is  not  less,,  but  more,  because  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
an  instinctive  impulse  rather  than  a  calculated  plan.     A  man 
gasping  for  breath  will  smash  things  that  he  would  not  venture 
to   touch  deliberatelv.     The  desire  seems  to  me  natural   and 
legitimate;    I  feel  convinced  that  every  reader  will  admit  that 
he  would  share  it  if  he  were  a  Russian.     This  much  at  least  is 
certain  •   it  will  ride  rough-shod  over  conventions  and  protocols 
and  treaties.     One  thing,  and  one  alone,  will  keep  Russia  per- 
manently from  the  Persian  Gulf;   some  force  stronger  than  her 

own.  1-  1     1  1 

In  pursuance  of  her  aim  she  has  already  accomplished  much. 

From  Resht.  on  the  Caspian,  practically  a  Russian  port,  she 
has  ma.le  a  good  road  to  Tehran,  and  is  reaping  a  rich  com- 
mercial reuar<l:  she  is  pushing  her  railway  fast  from  the  Cau- 
casus;   the  only  troops  of  the  Shah  worth  considering  are  his 


422 


ALL   THE    RUSSL^S 


so-called  "Cossacks,"  commanded  l)y  Russian  officers;    she  is 
said  to  have  a  force  at  Turl)at,  to  the  distress  of  the  natives; 
she  secured  a  monopoly  of  railway-buildmi;  in  Persia  for  ten 
years;    she  has  established  a  commercial  agency   and  a  \'ice- 
Consul  at   Bushire;    and   she   has  recently   coerced   Persia  into 
a  new  arrangement  of  (/(/  rahrcni  duties  favourable  to  her  own 
commerce.     So  far  as  North    Persia  is  concerned,   the   Times 
admits  that  Russia  "  has  established  her  commercial  and  indus- 
trial supremacy,  not  only  l)y  virtue  of  her  o-eographical  posi- 
tion,  but   also   by   bounties,   fmancial    encouragements,   and   a 
heavy   expenditure   of  workmen's   hves   and   hard   cash."      All 
these  together,  however,  are  of  less  significance  than  the  step 
by  which  she  laid  hands  upon  Persian  finance  and  tlie  custom- 
houses—a step  which  shows  that  although  she  has  been  quies- 
cent over  many  things,  she  struck  from  the  shoulder  when  a 
vital  issue  was  raised  by  the  action  of  another  Power. 

In  1892  the  (British)  Imperial  Bank  of  Persia  lent  the  Per- 
sian Government  £500,000,  upon  the  security  of  the  customs 
receipts  of  Southern  Persia  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  In  1898  the 
Persian  Government  desired  to  borrow  more  from  the  same 
source.  The  same  security  was  sufficient,  the  loan  was  for 
"  productive  consumption,"  the  British  Government  approved 
and  was  a  party  to  the  negotiations,  and  £1,250,000  was  under- 
written in  London.  At  the  last  moment  Russia  learned  of  the 
aiYair,  and  at  once  forbade  tlie  Persian  Government,  sans 
phrases,  to  conclude  the  loan,  and  offered  a  much  larger  sum  on 
the  security  of  all  the  customs.  Persia  was  desperately  alarmed. 
Lord  Salisbury  (exactly  as  later  in  tlie  similar  matter  of  a  Chi- 
nese loan)  did  nothing  to  sup])ort  the  British  capitalists  whom 
he  had  encouraged,  and  the  whole  business  was  abandoned.* 

-  "From  that  time  forward  the  influence  of  Russia  in  Persia  has  been  in  the  as- 
cendant, while  that  of  (ireat  liritaiii  has  perceptibly  waned.  //n;r  iILr  lacrnuu. 
Hence  the  troubles  and  obstacle  encountered  by  Indian  merchants  on  the  new  Ouetta- 
Nushki  route,  and  hence  many  other  untoward  consequences  of  a  policy  of  drift  and 
abstention.      It  is  now  clear  that  we  stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways  when  we  allowed 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


4^3 


f 


For  a  time  Persia,  afraid  to  offend  either  Russia  or  England, 
refrained  from  borrowms  at  all,  and  then  Russian  pressure  car- 
ried the  dav.     On  January  30.  1900.  the  (Russian)  Ban.nc  < . 
Vr:-U  dc  r'crsc  took  tq.  a  Persian  f^ve  per  cent,  gold  loan  for 
,.  Soo.ooo  roubles  (f..375.ooo-$n.575.ooo).  upon  the  secur- 
u7of  all  the  custom-houses  except  those  in  the  provn.ce  of 
Pars  and  on  the  Persian  Gulf,  redeemable  in  seventy-five  years^ 
,vith  the  adde<l  condition  that  all  previous  loans  shottld  be  paid 
off  at  once,  and  no  more  incurred  until  this  loan  is  discharged, 
without  the  permission  of  the  Russian  bank.     Accordingly,  on 
Februarv  23d.  less  than  a  month  later.  5.000.000  roubles  .ere 
remitted  to  London  to  pay  off  the  British  Loan  of  1892.       1 
.as  an  audacious  stroke,  brilliantly  successful.     The  remarks 
of  the  directors  of  the  British  bank  and  the  underwriters  are 
not  recorded,  but  the  Rossia  recently  alluded  to  the  operation 
as  '•  removing   from  the   neck  of  Persia  the   strangling  rope 

twisted  about  it  by  England." 

The  general  result  is  that  Persia  is  now  financially  a  x  assal 

of  Russia.     The  particular  results  are  that  ?---  ;;f  ^  ^^^ 
collected  (except  in  Ears  and  upon  the  Persian  Gu  f)  by  Rus- 
sians, or  rather  by  Belgians  acting  for  them  (precisely  as  m  the 
case  of  the  Chinese  railways),  a  fact  which,  according  to  ^Ir^ 
Folev    the  representative  of  the  Indian  Tea  Association,     has 
,iven' Indian  traders  the  i.lea  that  the  R^-'-V^^^^-^"™;  'f^ 
all-powerful  here,  that  Persia  is  practically  Russian,  and  Brush 
influence  is  nil;-  an<l  that,  pleading  the  danger  of  the  intro- 
<,uction  of  plague.  Russia  has  established  quarantine  stations 
.t  Seistan  and  on  the  Herat  border,  and  (again  quoting  Mr. 

Persia,  preparatory  to  absorbmg  her. 


.  c?     *    *    ^ 


..^.rwUk^A  >    0    ^ 


^  ,^.Jt.-*  ^^*-^  -W.*  -.^   *  t 


■••    .  -^  »     *    > 


Uj^jf**-! 


424  ALL   1H1-.    RLSSIAS 

Foley)  is  able  to  -  paralyse  anv  tra.le  by  the  (}uetta-Xushki 
route  by  keeping  caravans  and  travellers  unnecessarily  long  at 
any  station  before  granting  praticpie."  Tlie  Russian  agents 
also,  amongst  other  restrictions,  forbid  Indian  merchants,  car- 
rying goods  and  money,  to  enter  with  arms,  although  the  road 
in  Persia  is  unsafe  and  every  Persian  is  armed,  and  the  Indian 
traders  have  offered  to  give  any  guarantee  that  no  arms  shouUl 
be  sold,  and  even  to  register  every  weapon  and  produce  it  again 
when  thev  leave  Persia.  Thus  a  new  and  promising  Indian 
trade  outlet— which  might  be  greatly  developed  by  a  railway 
from  Quetta  or  Larkhana  to  Seistan— is  in  imminent  danger  of 

being  blocked. 

So  much  for  the  nature  of  Russia's  claim  upon  Persia,  and 
what  she  has  already  accomplished  there.     What  now  are  Eng- 
land's position  and  title  in  the  same  sphere^     In  Northern  Per- 
sia we  have  neither  right  nor  result  to  point  to,  beyond  certain 
financial  and  other  relations  which  give  us  no  kind  of  special 
interest,  and  our  indirect  concern  with  the  trade  of  .Afghanistan, 
our  sphere  of  influence.     In  Southern  Persia  and  the  Gulf,  on 
the  other  hand,  our  interest  is  both  great  and  intimate.     The 
present  situation  in  the  Gulf  is  the  <lirect  result  of  our  work. 
British  soldiers  and  sailors,  and  British  treasure,  acting  contin- 
uously over  a  long  period  of  years,  have  imposed  peace  and 
brought  prosperitv  to  what  was— and  spee.lily  would  be  again, 
were  authority   removed— a  hotbed  of  tribal  warfare,  slavery, 
piracy,  and  disorder  of  every  kind.     From  this  point  of  view  the 
trade  of  the  Persian  Gulf  is  our  asset— we  have  created  it.     Rus- 
sia has  nothing  comparable  of  this  kind  to  show.     Moreover, 
although  bv  her  prohibitive  tactics  Russia  has  a  large  prepon- 
derance of 'the  trade  of  Northern   Persia,  that  of  the  Persian 
Gulf  mav  be  said  to  be  almost  wholly  with  the  Unite.l  Kmg.lom 
and  India.     Out  of  188.608  tons  of  foreign  shipping  at  the  port 
of  Busra  in  1900,  172.9.38  were  British.*     Further,  although  the 

.  The  Statesman's  Y,-ar  Book  for   .001,  pp.  6.0.  6...  gives  ,he  total    .mport   and 
export  trade  of  the  United  Kingdom  and   India  with   Persia  as  ^3.6'9.oo6.  and  that 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


425 


!  r.,i 


,      P  '/c  A^  Prr.c  is  (like  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank)  only 
BanqiiC  dcs  Prcts  dc  I  cist  is  un^*-  octahlishincr 

.,,,,/her  name  for  the  Russian  Government,  -^y; -™;;^ 
:,  ,.anches  and  agencies,  the  Imperial  Bank  o    ?--  ■      B 
,sh  institution,  is  '•  virtually  the  State  bank  of  the  coun    >        e 
essential  part  of  whose  business  is  largely  connected  .1  h  the 
essential  pai  t  collection  and  transfer  of  Gov- 

Government  hnances,  such  as  tne  co. 

,ti»  icsiip  of  naner  monev  and  the  nickei  com 
ernment  revenues,  the  issue  01  pape.  .^ 

nfre  the  import  of  silver  for  the  mint,  etc. 
'  Thir    exists,  however,  a  ground  for  the  status  ,no  m  Persia 
of  fl    greater  importance  from  the  standpoint  of  international 
r  1    ions  than   anv   commercial  achievements   or  prospects- 
Simg  le!:  n.  fa.,  than  an  en.agemei.  betw...  t^^^^^^^^^ 

-r  "1  "nf"":;ni -rftiX^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

inf  enendence  ot  1  ersia.      mi^  i^  «.i  v 

made  and  confirmed  in  X834.  .838.  1839,  ^^^jf /^^ 
our  knowledge  of  it  is  conveyed  in  a  despatch  from  L  rd  Sal 
bury  to  Sir  Robert  Morier,  British  Ambassado    ^t  St.  Peters 
V,    g,  dated  March  t.,  1888,  in  which  he  states  that  M.  de  St^al 
Russ  an  Ambassador  in  London,  called  at  the  Foreign  Of^  e 
tiXt  afternoon  and  read  him  a  despatch  "  written  ,n  very  friendly 
terms."     Lord  Salisbury  continues : 

,     ,V,P  first  Dlace  as  regards  our  desire  for  an  assurance  that  the  engage- 

t  b^  ve  :  the  two  GovLments  to  respect  and  promote  the  integrity  and 

ment  betv^een    h    t  ^o  ^^^^.^^  Government  as  remaining 

'  ZtlTu  e  Crstates  that, 'although,  in  their  opinion,  there  are  no 
iresl  grounds  for  apprehending  any  danger  to  Persia,  and  although  they  have 

o,  Russia  as  ^,,.00,000.  These  figures  can  ^^^:^::':r;::^i::^::^. 

ably  impossible  ,0  get  the  correct  fig--  ^^^'t  iTsotly  f  cm  which  merchandise 
not  tt^rnish  them,  and  m  ..s  returns  l^^^^^,  ,,,^,„d  )-  On  the  other  hand, 
actually  starts  for  Persia  are  g,ven.-(Mr.t  on  ul^G  nera  Wood  )  ^^^  ^^^ 

a  Renter  telegram  from  Tehran  g.ves  the  total  fore  gn    "^e  <>  ^       ^^^^^ 

i„g  March  ...  .90..  as  ^S  -0.000,  an    .ates  th.  oH      .  fi.yj_x  p  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^ 

with    Kussta,  and  twenty-four  per  «"  '  '""^^J ''',  ^„  „,,„,  ,«  be  accepted  without 
figures  of  the  Russo- Belgian  customs  staff,  and  b> 

'"".'"Mr.  Consul-General   C.   G.    Wood,   A'.fort  for   O.    V^ar  „oo  on  ike  Trade  of 
Azalmijan,  p.  19- 


^.lfj%p!' 


««#«*.-  ^'  ^rf 


^     .       „.       *»',»— ...'•^-- 


*        '-~        *"-      T*-  *  •*     ^  ^  . 


4^6  ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 

received  no  communication  on  the  subject  from  Tehran,  yet  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment have  no  objection  to  placing  again  on  record  that  their  views  on  this 
point  are  in  no  way  altered.  The  Persian  Government,  his  Excellency  adds, 
have  on  more  than  one  occasion  had  tangible  proof  of  this,  and  he  alludes  to  a 
military  demonstration  made  at  the  request  of  the  Shah  in  1880  on  the  Cauca- 
sian frontier,  when  a  portion  of  the  Province  of  Azerbaidjan  was  suffering  from 
the  incursions  of  bands  of  Kurds. 


RUSSL^    AND    ExNGLAND 


427 


I  have  expressed  in  M.  de  Staal.  and  I  request  your  Excellency  to  offer  M. 
de  Giers,  my  best  thanks  for  this  frank  and  courteous  communication  of  the 
views  of  the  Russian  Government.  It  has  been  highly  satisfactory  to  Her 
Majesty's  Government  to  learn  that  those  views  are  so  much  in  accordance  with 
their  own,  and  they  owe  their  acknowledgments  to  M.  de  Giers  for  enabling  Sir 
H.  D.  Wolff  to  inaugurate  his  mission  by  an  assurance  to  the  Shah  that  tlie 
engagements  between  Great  Britain  and  Russia  to  respect  and  promote  the 
integrity  and  independence  of  the  Persian  Kingdom  have  again  been  renewed 
and  confirmed.* 


au- 


This  important  despatch  shows,  on  the  liii^hest  possible  r 
thority,  that  an  eno^agement  of  long  standing  |)et\veen  the  Brit- 
ish and  Rnssian  Governments  to  respect  the  "  integrity  and  inde- 
pendence "  of  Persia  was  declared  by  l)otli  to  be  binchng  ui)on 
them  fourteen  years  ago.  This  engagement  still  holds  good, 
for  in  reply  to  an  inquiry  by  myself,  in  a  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  January  22,  1902,  Lord  Cranl)orne,  Under- 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Aftairs,  made  this  important 
statement  : 

The  Hon.  Member  for  Wolverhampton  referred  to  an  exchange  of  notes 
which  took  place  in  1888  in  regard  to  Persia,  and  he  quite  accurately  quoted 
what  passed  on  that  occasion.  It  was  that  mutual  assurances  had  been  given 
that  the  policy  of  England  and  Russia  was  the  maintenance  of  the  integrity  of 
Persia ;  and  I  have  special  reason  to  believe  that  on  both  sides  that  assurance  is 
maintained. 

•   Treaties  containin^^  Guarantees  or  Fnoa.emeuts  hv  Great  Britain  in  Kelatum  to 

ihe  Territory  or  Government  oj  other  Countries       Miscellaneous   Series.   \o    2   (i8q8) 
p.    130-  ^      .        V      y   ,;, 


The  whole  question  of  the  future  of  Persia,  however,  is  one  of 
undoubted  urgency.     There  is  in  existence  an  arrangement  be- 
tween Russia  and  the  Sultan  regarding  future  railways  in  Asiatic 
Turkey;  there  is  some  ground  for  the  belief  that  Russia  has 
secretly  acquired  from  Persia  a  lease  of  one  of  the  ports  on  the 
Gulf;  Germany  has  the  concession  of  a  railway  from  Constanti- 
nople to  Baghdad,  and  her  agents  have  already  once  applied  in 
the  name  of  the  Sultan  for  a  harbour  on  the  Gulf;  *  British  gun- 
boats have  forcibly  prevented  the  cession  of  a  coaling  station  to 
France  on  the  Gulf,  and  the  landing  of  Turkish  troops  at  another 
port  there;  the  Indian  Government  is  being  strongly  urged  to 
construct  a  railway  to  the  Persian  frontier;  the  Russian  and  Con- 
tinental press  sees  an  imminent  contest  between  Great  Britain 
and  Russia  over  the  whole  issue;  and  the  subject  of  the  fate  of 
Persia  in  the  future  relations  of  the  two  nations  has  been  raised 
in  an  acute  form  by  several  English  writers.     In  its  frankest 
form  this  urgent  question  is,  should  England  consent  to  the  an- 
nexation of  Persia  by  Russia  in  order  to  effect  an  Anglo-Russian 
settlement  of  all  matters  of  possible  conflict  between  the  two 
nations,  and  to  replace  the  present  relations  of  suspicion  and 
veiled  hostility,  with  the  possibility  of  a  ruinous  conflict,  by  an 
amicable  and  inclusive  understanding? 

The  question  is  of  the  greatest  importance  and  delicacy. 
Those  who  answer  it  in  the  affirmative  begin  by  laying  stress 
upon  the  relief  every  British  statesman,  and,  indeed,  every 
thoughtful  citizen,  would  feel  if  all  chance  of  a  war  with  Russia 
were  removed— the  possibility  of  which  dogs  our  foreign  policy 
at  every  step.  Upon  this  we  are  all  agreed.  They  then  pro- 
ceed to  offer  us  a  choice  between  fighting  a  Continental  coali- 
tion, to  be  created  by  Germany,  and  coming  to  an  arrangement 
with  Russia.  And  some  press  this  point  with  the  peculiar  con- 
fidence which  attaches  to  anonymity.  "  Unless  by  conscription, 
a  fleet  at  the  three-Power  standard,  and  service  estimates  rising 

*  See  page  258. 


tVi^jf  .»•*-•** 


428 


ALL    THi;    Rl  SSLAS 


at  no  distant  date  to  ejohty  or  ninety  millions  a  year,  there  can 
i)e   no  adeqnate   insnrance  a-ainst   the  appearance  of  Germany 
and  her  fleet  at  the  head  of  a  ho>tile   lun-ope  hnt  a  settlement 
with   Russia  })y  the  unreserved  relin(|nishment  of  I'ersia  to  her 
influence.      There  is  no  diplomatic  alternative  worth  considera- 
tion/' *      This  course  has  also  been  stron-ly  ur-ed  bv  a  -roup 
of  anoiiymous  writers  in  the  "  National  Review,"  but  their  plan 
is  not  so  bold,  for  it  consists  in  offerino-  Russia  a  conmiercial 
outlet  on  the  Persian  Gulf,  "  in  return  for  an  undertakino-  on  the 
part  of  Russia  to  respect  the  political  status  quo  alon-  the  shores 
of  the  Gulf."     This  is  a  case  of  Mr.  Balfour  and  Port  Arthur  over 
again,  and  would  be  followed,  in  my  opinion,  by  a  similar  result; 
namely,  that  we  should  give  away  everything  and  provoke  ill- 
will   to  boot.     Sir   Rowland   Blennerhassett,  who  writes   upon 
foreign  afTairs  with  much  knowledge  and  sobriety  of  judgment, 
has  also  strongly  advocated  a  complete  al)an(lonment  of  our  in- 
terests in  Persia,  as  the  only  way  to  avoid  a  "  desperate  war," 
and  further  "  deplorable  results  "  from  surrenders  to  Germany 
of  the  kind  we  have  recently  experienced  in  the  Far  East. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  much  force  in  the  conten- 
tion that  England  could  hardly  fight  Russia  in  Persia  without 
military  sacrifices  to  which  the  nation  would  be  most  loath  to 
submit  on  such  an  issue.    This  is  a  question  for  militarv  experts, 
of  course,  but  the  dif^culty  of  the  situation  that  would  arise  if 
Russia  simultaneously  seized  Herat  and  advanced  an  army  to 
Tehran  (where  it  would  meet  with  no  local  opposition  whatever), 
may    surely   be    appreciated    by   any    thoughtful    Englishman' 
.Moreover,  we  should  almost  certainly  not  be  ofTered  the  decision 
of  any  such  clear-cut  problem  as  this.      Russia  would  assuredly 
follow  her  usual  tactics  of  advancing  step  by  step,  no  one  step 
being  sufificiently  hostile  in  appearance  to  furnish  a  direct  chal- 
lenge to  a  war  in  which  the  fate  of  the  British  Empire  would  be 
at  stake,  but  all  of  them  forming  at  last  the  fait  accompli  envis- 

*  "Calchas,"  in  the  Fortm^htly  K^view,  December,  1901,  p.  947. 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND  429 

aged  from  the  first.     The  recent  history  of  Central  Asia  affords 

a  precise  precedent. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  weighty  authority  against  the 
abandonment  of  our  position  on  the  Persian  Gulf.  Captain 
Mahan,  for  example,  has  made  the  following  observations  upon 
this  question: 

Progress  through  Persia  would  not  only  approach  the  gulf,  but  if  success- 
ful would  turn-would  outflank-the  mountains  of  Afghanistan,  avoiding  the 
difficulties  presented  by  the  severe  features  of  that  country,  and  by  the  character 
of  its  inhabitants.  Russia  would  thus  obtain  a  better  position  both  in  itself  and 
in  its  communication  with  the  north,  for  beginning  and  sustaining  operations  in 

India  itself. 

Unless  Great  Britain  and  Germany  are  prepared  to  have  the  Suez  route  to 
India  and  the  Far  East  closed  to  them  in  time  of  war.  they  cannot  afford  to  see 
the  borders  of  the  Levant  and  the  Persian  Gulf  become  the  territorial  base  for 
the  navy  of  a  possible  enemy,  especially  if  it  appear  that  the  policy  of  the  latter 
in  the  Pacific  runs  seriously  counter  to  their  own.  * 

And  Lord  Curzon  committed  himself  some  time  ago  to  a 
most  uncompromising  attitude.  After  describing  the  results  of 
British  surrender  of  the  control  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  he  says : 
^'  I  do  not  think  there  can  be  two  opinions  among  Englishmen 
that  there  is  no  justification,  either  in  policy  or  in  reason,  for 
exposing  India  to  such  a  danger,  or  for  allowing  South  Persia 
to  fall  into  Russian  hands."  f  And  in  another  place  he  has 
declared  that  he  would  regard  the  cession  to  Russia  of  a  Persian 
Gulf  port  as  ''  a  wanton  rupture  of  the  status  quo,  and  as  an  in- 
ternational provocation  to  war,  and  T  should  impeach  the  British 
Minister  who  was  guilty  of  acquiescing  in  such  a  surrender  as  a 

traitor  to  his  country."  X 

And  Major  Francis  Edward  Younghusband  has  put  the  ob- 
jection in  a  concrete  form : 

*  T/if  Prod/em  of  Asia,  pp.  56-  77- 

t  Russia  in  CcJitral  Asia,  second  edition,  p.  378. 

\  Persia  (1892),  vol.  11.  p.  465- 


43  o 


ALL   THK    KUSSLAS 


Some  will   .ay  there  is   room  enou,i;h  in  Asia  for  both  England  and   Russia 
and  why  not  let  Russia  go  to  the  I'ersian  Gulf  ,f  she  uants  to  '^     There  is  room 
of  course,  but  Russia  already  has  much  the  larger  share  of  it.     While  we  have' 
less  than  2.000,000  she   has  6.500.000  square  miles,     liesides  this  she  is  just 
absorbing  .Manehuna  with  another  360.000  square  miles,  and  we  adnm  that  she 
must   have  Mongolia  with    ,.300.000  square  miles  and  Chinese  Turkestan  with 
580.000  square  miles.     In  addition  to  all  this,  which  antounts  in  the  aggregate 
to  2,250.000  square  miles,  we  recognise  that  she  must  control  Northern  Persia 
Is  not  this  enough  room  without  conceding  Southern  Persia  as  well  ?  • 

These  are  all  opinions  entitled  to  respectful  consideration; 
but  upon  examination,  it  will  appear  that  the  authorities  pro- 
fessing them  contradict   themselves  or  one  another.     Captain 
ALahan.  for  instance,  says  in  one  place  that  Russia  established 
m  the  Persian  Gulf  would  he  a  "  perpetual  menace  in  war,"  and 
that  England  "  cannot  afford  to  see  the  Persian  Gulf  become  the 
territorial  base  for  the  tiavy  of  a  jKissiblc  enemy  •';  vet  in  another 
he  declares  that  the  maintenance  there,  by  Russia,  of  "  a  navy 
sufficient  to  be  a  serious  consideration  to  the  fleets  of  Great 
Britain,  and  to  tho.se  who  would  be  her  natural  allies  upon  the 
sea  in  case  of  complications  in  the  farther  East,  would  involve 
an  exhausting  effort,  and  a  naval  abandonment  of  the  Black 
Sea.  or  of  the  China  Sea.  or  of  both."  f    It  may  fairlv  be  argued 
that  we  do  not  run  much  risk  in  affording  to  a  possible  enemy 
an  opportunity  of  whicli  he  cannot  make  use  without  exhausting 
hmiself.     Lord   Curzon,   again,   .says   that    "The   absorption   0I 
N.  E.  Persia  and  Khorasan  will  provide  an  alternative  route  of 
advance,  either  upon  Herat  or,  through  Seistan,  upon  P.eluchis- 
tan  and   India  itself."  ^     Yet  acconling  to   Major  Younghus- 
band.  in  the  letter  previously  cited.  ■'  we  recognise  that  Russia 
must  control  Northern  Persia."  and  therefore  what  Lord  Cur- 
zon fears  for  Herat  has  already  happened !     And  surely  the  in- 
vasion of  India  through  Seistan  is  a  contingency  remote  enough 
to  be  disregarded.     It  appears  to  me.  therefore,  that  the  opiti- 

Letter  to   YVu-  I'lmes,  December  5,   1901. 
t   The  Prohlt'fu  of  Asia,  j)    119. 
X  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  second  edition,  {>.  377. 


H' 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


43^ 


ions  even  of  these  authorities  do  not  bring  the  solution  much 

nearer. 

Moreover,  there  can  be  no  great  and  far-reaching  arrange- 
ment between  two  Powers  m  which  some  risks  are  not  incurred. 
The  question  must  be  whether  the  advantages  greatly  outweigh 
the  dangers.     A  Russia  naval  base  and  fleet  in  the  Persian  Gulf 
would  necessitate  a  strengthening  of  our  sea  power  in  Indian 
waters,  for  the  safeguarding  alike  of  India  and  our  routes  to  the 
Far  East  and  to  Australasia,  and  the  building  of  certain  strategi- 
cal Indian  railways,   e.g..   from  Ahmedabad  to  Karachi.     But 
friendly  relations  with   Russia  (including,  as  they  necessarily 
would,  a  similar  settlement  with  France),  placed  upon  a  perma- 
nent and  defined  footing,  would  be  cheaply  purchased  at  the 
price  of  an  additional  squadron  in  those  waters,  and  a  railway  or 
two.     And  would  it  not  be  rather  an  advantage  than  otherwise 
to  us,  who  must  for  our  very  existence  retain  the  command  of 
the  sea,  that  Russia  should  come  down  to  the  sea  and  thereby 
offer  a  fresh  vulnerable  place  and  a  new  trade-route  to  our  nat- 
ural means  of  attack,  if  ever  friendship  failed?     The  more  the 
elephant  comes  to  the  water,  the  better  the  chance  of  the  whale. 
And,  to  recur  to  the  kernel  of  the  question,  can  we,  a  sea  power, 
prevent  Russia,  with  her  vast  army,  carrying  out  these  land  oper- 
ations in  far-off  Asia  whenever  she  may  choose  to  do  so? 

This  question  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  one  between 
England  and  Russia  alone.  Upon  its  decision  hang  two  other 
international  issues  of  great  gravity.  If  we  come  to  terms  with 
Russia,  our  relations  with  France,  already  happily  upon  a  better 
footing,  must  also  necessarily  improve.  To  us  this  would  be 
easy  and  natural,  but  France  would  follow  Russia's  lead  in  such 
a  matter,  where  she  would  hesitate,  from  old  suspicion  and  recent 
sharp  divergence  of  interest,  to  take  action  by  herself.  French- 
men, usually  so  alert  to  perceive  national  movements  of  sympa- 
thy or  the  reverse,  would  then  probably  at  last  learn  that  there 
is  no  countrv  except  the  United  States  for  whom  so  much  good- 


—    T-r  ,„», 


43  2 


ALL     IHL    RUSSIAS 


1^ 


will  is  felt  in  Iinoland,  or  ai^ainst  whom  national  passion  conld 
only  with  so  nuicli  difiicult)  he  aroused,  as  h^rance.  And  to 
nine  Kno-lishmen  otit  of  ten  the  faet  that  a  Russian  understaiM- 
inor  would  necessarily  uivolve  a  settlement  with  iM-ance  also, 
would  he  an  additional  and  stron^-  aroument  in  its  favour. 

The  other  international  issue  is  unhappily  of  a  dilYerent  char- 
acter.    The  feelino-  of  the  liritish  people  toward  (Germany  has 
undergone  a  serious  change  of  late,  and  althouo-h  it  would  be 
mipolitic  to  exaggerate  this,  it  would  he  even  more  unwise  to 
ignore    it.      Several    causes    have    brought    about    the    change. 
The  masses  of  the  people,  acting  ui)on  simple  impressions  and 
instinctive  impulses,  have  been  deeply  affronted  by  the  indecent 
caricatures  of   King  and   Oueen  whicli   have  enjoyed  absolute 
immunity  in  a  land  where  Irsc-)>iajcsfc  is  officially  regarded  as  a 
I)eculiarly   heinous  offence,   and   by   the   veritable  campaign   of 
invective  and   "  foul  and  hlthy  lies,"  as  Sir  Edward   Grey   has 
rightly  called   them,  directed  against  our  ofhcers  and   men  in 
South   Africa.*      .\t    first    this   was   confined    to    that   consider- 
able  portion  of  the   German   press  known   to   l)e  corrupt,  and 
It  was  fed  by  the  ample  means  of  which  the  Boer  rei)resentatives 
in  I'russels  at  first  (lis|)osed.      But  later  it   spread  to  more  re- 
spectable German  journals,  until  virtually  the  whole  press  reeked 
with  it— the  Socialist   fin-wurfs  being  the  chief  honourable  ex- 
ception in  this  as  in  so  many  other  matters — the  insertion  of 
indecent  advertisements,  for  example.      It  is  easy  to  analyse  the 
origins  of  this  seemingly  volcanic  u|)heaval.      Bismarck  system- 
atically  corrupted   the   press,  and   poisoned   the  atmosphere  of 
Ciermany  with  suspicion  and  hatred  of  England.      There  are  his 
chickens  coming  home  to  roost.     The  extraordinary  growth  of 
national  sentiment  after  the  war  of  1870,  legitimate  and  natural 

*  Lord  Rol)erts,  ( ■ommander  in-chic-f.  has  even  thou^du  it  necessary  to  ^nve  his 
"  most  positive  assurance  "  toaCerman  lady  correspondent  that  the  statements  that 
Boer  women  and  .^irls  have  been  Molated  hv  British  officers  and  soldiers,  and  that  all 
Boer  tenudes  over  twelve  years  of  a.^e  m  a  certain  rctu-ee  camp  were  "despatched  to 
Pretoria  for  immoral  jnirposes  "  w.-re  "absolutely  without  foundation  ".' 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


433 


enough,  has  now  run  to  excess  in  that  fatal  pride  which  was  the 
favourite  theme  of  the  Greek  dramatist.  The  unparaUeled  de- 
velopment of  German  commerce  and  the  sudden  accretion  of 
wealth  has  been  accompanied  by  a  distinct  lowering  of  the  old 
German  standards  of  mental  sobriety  and  severe  morality,  with 
the  result  that  serious  Germans  have  not  hesitated  to  write  in 
alarm  of  certain  recent  events  and  tendencies  both  at  home  and 
in  the  Colonies.  This  analysis,  however,  though  it  may  explain 
the  origin  of  the  anti-British  campaign,  cannot  mitigate  its  in- 
tense effect  upon  the  minds  of  innumerable  Englishmen,  who 
have  seen  their  country  befouled  by  a  dirty  torrent  wdiich  even 
the  example  and  speech  of  the  Emperor  himself  are  powerless 

to  stem. 

The  anger  in  the  minds  of  the  British  people  at  large  is 
matched,  unfortunately,  by  the  alarm  with  which  thoughtful 
observers  have  noticed  certain  revelations  of  modern  German 
policy.  The  repeated  declarations  of  the  Emperor  concerning 
the  part  to  be  played  in  the  immediate  future  by  the  German 
navy,  his  dictum  that  "  Our  future  lies  upon  the  water,"  the 
official  definition  that  the  navy  must  be  able  to  "  keep  the  North 
Sea  clear,"  its  rapid  growth,  officially  insisted  upon  in  the  face 
of  every  pecuniary  and  Parliamentary  obstacle,  and  a  recent 
revelation  that  it  is  being  pushed  forward  even  faster  than  the 
German  public  was  aware— have  naturally  raised  acutely  the 
question,  what  role,  against  wdiom,  is  the  German  navy  in- 
tended to  play?  And  the  geographical  situation  of  Germany, 
her  rapidly  increasing  population,  and  her  over-production, 
demanding  new  and  protected  markets,  together  with  the 
fact  that  only  two  countries,  England  and  Holland,  possess 
over-sea  territories  corresponding  to  the  German  demand, 
supply  the  answer.  Holland  is  surely  destined  to  come  under 
German  influence,  and  if  the  German  fleet  to  be  is  not  in- 
tended— alone  or  by  judicious  alliance — to  neutralise  England's 
command  of  the  sea,  with  its  natural  commercial  consequences 


434 


ALL    TH1-,    F-IUSSLAS 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


435 


fv 


t 


which  Germany  feels  restricting-  her  ambition  and  needs  at  so 
many  ])oints,  and  to  sectire  for  her  a  position  on  the  water 
analof^-ous  to  that  site  enjoys  on  land,  then  a  foreii^ner  can  liardly 
see  what  reason  it  has  for  comin<j^  into  existence  at  all.  At  any 
rate,  wliether  this  he  the  aim  or  not,  the  growth  of  the  German 
navy  is  calculated  to  make  it  a  possihilit}-. 

The  aiarni  of  students  of  foreij^n  affairs  rests  also  oti  more 
precise  grounds  than  the  aboye.  The  German  Foreign  Minister 
has  informed  the  world  that  Germany  sounded  other  Powers  of 
Europe  concerning  a  possible  coalition  against  England  in  con- 
nection with  South  African  affairs,  and  that  haying  discoyered 
that  she  would  be  "  isolated  "  in  acting  against  us,  to  l)e  "  patri- 
otic "  could  do  nothing.  A  recent  writer  has  ex])ressed  '*  doubt 
whether  history  records  a  more  impudetit  ayowal  of  an  un- 
friendly act,"  and  if  for  the  word  "  impudent,"  which  has  no 
applicability,  the  word  **  frank  "  were  substituted,  the  remark 
is  not  exaggerated.  Again,  the  unconcealed  and  almost  con- 
temptuous hostility  to  England  showed  by  Count  yon  W'alder- 
see  in  China,  against  which  both  Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Lans- 
downe  protested  in  sharp  terms,*  and  which  we  should  presum- 
ably haye  met  in  a  peremptory  manner  if  almost  eyery  ayailable 
British  soldier  had  not  been  in  South  Africa,  could  not  but  pro- 
duce a  lamentable  impression  in  this  country.  Finally,  the 
manner  in  which  the  German  Goyernment  has  treated  Lord 
Salisbury's  Anglo-German   Conyention   regarding  China   (now 

•  For  instance,  Lord  Salisbury  to  the  Ikitish  Ambassador  in  Herlin,  October  30, 
1900:  "The  arrangements  referred  to  with  regard  to  railway  traffic  assume  to  deal 
with  private  British  commercial  interests  without  consultation  with  the  persons  affected 
or  communication  with  her  Majesty's  Government.  You  should  request  the  German 
Government  to  obtain  frcm  Count  Waldersee  an  explanation  of  these  arrangements." 
And  Lord  Lansdowne  to  the  same,  November  27th:  "In  the  opinion  of  her 
Majesty's  Government,  such  an  arrangement,  closely  affecting  the  interests  of  the 
British  bondholders,  should  not  have  been  made  without  consultation  with  their  rep- 
resentatives or  previous  communication  with  her  Majesty's  Government.  I  should 
wish  your  Excellency  to  point  this  out  to  the  German  Government." 

A  summary  of  German  anti- British  action  in  China  was  given  in  a  striking  letter  to 
the  Timfs  signed  "  Far  East,"  on  August  26,  1901. 


known  in  Germany  as  the  ''  Yang-tsze  Agreement  " !)  has 
changed  many  doubts  of  its  policy  into  conyiction.  This  mad 
agreement  formally  gaye  Germany  henceforth  an  equal  right 
in  our  own  Chinese  sphere  of  influence,  and  only  imposed  upon 
her  in  return  obligations  of  so  flimsy  a  character  that  she  has 
already  tossed  them  aside. 

The  simple  truth,  as  it  has  long  been  known  to  the  few'  and 
is  now  at  last  beginning  to  be  appreciated  by  the  many,  is  that 
Germany  has  come  to  regard  us  with  hostility,  tempered  by  in- 
difference, if  not  by  contempt,  and  that  she  will  do  almost  any- 
thing, or  leaye  almost  anything  undone,  to  keep  on  good  terms 
with  Russia.  She  is  running  counter  to  Russia,  as  I  haye  pre- 
yiously  shown,  on  one  great  matter  of  foreign  policy,  but  with 
this  exception  the  German  attitude  toward  Russia  is  only 
equalled  in  submission  by  the  attitude  of  the  British  Government 
for  the  past  seven  years  toward  Germany.  There  is  nothing  in 
this  for  Englishmen  to  blame  or  to  resent:  every  independent 
nation  has  the  right  to  make  its  policy  subserve  its  own  ends; 
but  there  is  very  much  in  it  from  w^hich  they  should  take  warn- 
ing, if  not  alarm,  and  the  German  people  cannot  be  surprised 
that  Englishmen  who  read  the  venerable  Professor  Mommsen's 
''  regret  .  .  .  that  a  deep  and  incurable  split  "  is  ''  now 
yawning  betw^een  the  two  nations,"  should  themselves  reluc- 
tantly recognise  that  the  former  good  relations  with  their  neigh- 
bours across  the  North  Sea  have,  for  the  present  at  any  rate, 
given  place  on  both  sides  to  a  very  different  feeling. 

To  return  now-,  after  this  excursus,  to  the  relations  of  Eng- 
land and  Russia,  it  is  evident  that  if  there  is  any  ground  whatever 
to  fear  the  active  hostility  of  Germany  in  the  near  future,  with 
possibly  other  attempts  to  form  coalitions  against  us,  the  fact 
must  exercise  a  very  grave  influence  upon  our  minds  in  consid- 
ering our  future  relations  with  other  Powers.  If  we  do  Ger- 
many an  injustice  in  being  thus  influenced,  if  our  suspicions  and 
alarms  are  unfounded — and  there  is  still  enough  good-will  left 


4J4 


ALL    TH!-.    RLSSLAS 


RUSSIA    AND    LNGLAND 


435 


tin 


which  Germany  feels  restricting-  her  ambition  and  needs  at  so 
many  points,  and  to  sectn'c  for  her  a  poMtion  on  the  water 
analo^^'ous  to  tliat  she  enjoxs  on  land,  then  a  forei.L;ner  can  hardly 
see  what  reason  it  has  for  coniinsj^  into  existence  at  all.  At  anv 
rate,  wdiether  this  he  the  aim  or  not,  the  growth  of  the  German 
navy  is  calculated  to  make  it  a  possil)ility. 

The  alarm  of  students  of  forei<^n  affairs  rests  also  on  more 
precise  grounds  than  the  al)ove.  The  German  Foreign  Minister 
has  informed  the  world  that  Germany  sounded  other  Powers  of 
Europe  concerning  a  ])ossil)le  coalition  against  England  in  con- 
nection with  South  African  affairs,  and  that  having  discovered 
that  she  would  be  "  isolated  "  in  acting  against  us,  to  be  ''  patri- 
otic "  could  do  nothing.  A  recent  writer  has  expressed  '*  doubt 
whether  history  records  a  more  im])U(lent  avowal  of  an  un- 
friendly act,"  and  if  for  the  word  *'  impudent."  which  has  no 
applicability,  the  word  '*  frank  "  were  substituted,  the  remark 
is  not  exaggerated.  Again,  the  unconcealed  and  almost  con- 
temptuous hostility  to  England  showed  by  Count  von  Walder- 
see  in  China,  against  which  both  Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Lans- 
downe  protested  in  sharp  terms,*  and  which  we  should  presum- 
ably have  met  in  a  peremptory  manner  if  almost  every  available 
British  soldier  had  not  been  in  South  Africa,  could  not  but  pro- 
duce a  lamentable  impression  in  this  country.  Finally,  the 
manner  in  which  the  German  Government  has  treated  Lord 
Salisbury's  Anglo-German   Convention   regarding  China   (now 

•  For  instance,  Lord  Salisbury  to  the  British  Ambassador  in  Herlin,  October  30, 
1900:  "The  arrangements  referred  to  with  regard  to  railway  traffic  assume  to  deal 
with  private  British  commercial  interests  without  consultation  with  the  persons  affected 
or  communication  with  her  Majesty's  Government.  Vou  should  recjuest  the  (ierman 
Government  to  obtain  from  Count  Waldersee  an  explanation  of  these  arrangements." 
And  Lord  Lansdowne  to  the  same.  November  27th:  "In  the  opinion  of  her 
Majesty's  Government,  such  an  arrangement,  closely  affecting  the  interests  of  the 
British  bondholders,  should  not  have  been  made  without  consultation  with  their  rep- 
resentatives or  previous  communication  with  her  Majesty's  (iovernment.  I  should 
wish  your  Excellency  to  point  this  out  to  the  (iernuin  Government." 

A  summary  of  (ierman  anti-British  action  in  China  was  given  in  a  striking  letter  to 
the  Times  signed  "  Far  East,"  on  August  26,  1901. 


•I 


known  in  Germany  as  the  ''  Yang-tsze  Agreement  " !)  has 
changed  many  doubts  of  its  policy  into  conviction.  This  mad 
agreement  formally  gave  Germany  henceforth  an  equal  right 
in  our  own  Chinese  sphere  of  influence,  and  only  imposed  upon 
her  in  return  obligations  of  so  flimsy  a  character  that  she  has 
already  tossed  them  aside. 

The  simple  truth,  as  it  has  long  been  know^n  to  the  few^  and 
is  now  at  last  beginning  to  be  appreciated  by  the  many,  is  that 
Germany  has  come  to  regard  us  with  hostility,  tempered  by  in- 
difference, if  not  by  contempt,  and  that  she  w411  do  almost  any- 
thing, or  leave  almost  anything  undone,  to  keep  on  good  terms 
with  Russia.  She  is  running  counter  to  Russia,  as  I  have  pre- 
viously shown,  on  one  great  matter  of  foreign  policy,  but  wnth 
this  exception  the  German  attitude  tow^ard  Russia  is  only 
equalled  in  submission  by  the  attitude  of  the  British  Government 
for  the  past  seven  years  tow^ard  Germany.  There  is  nothing  in 
this  for  Englishmen  to  blame  or  to  resent :  every  independent 
nation  has  the  right  to  make  its  policy  subserve  its  owm  ends; 
but  there  is  very  much  in  it  from  which  they  should  take  warn- 
ing, if  not  alarm,  and  the  German  people  cannot  be  surprised 
that  Englishmen  who  read  the  venerable  Professor  Mommsen's 
**  regret  .  .  .  that  a  deep  and  incurable  split  "  is  ''  now 
yawning  between  the  two  nations,"  should  themselves  reluc- 
tantly recognise  that  the  former  good  relations  with  their  neigh- 
bours across  the  North  Sea  have,  for  the  present  at  any  rate, 
given  place  on  both  sides  to  a  very  diiTerent  feeling. 

To  return  now%  after  this  excursus,  to  the  relations  of  Eng- 
land and  Russia,  it  is  evident  that  if  there  is  any  ground  whatever 
to  fear  the  active  hostility  of  Germany  in  the  near  future,  with 
possibly  other  attempts  to  form  coalitions  against  us,  the  fact 
must  exercise  a  very  grave  influence  upon  our  minds  in  consid- 
ering our  future  relations  with  other  Powders.  If  we  do  Ger- 
many an  injustice  in  being  thus  influenced,  if  our  suspicions  and 
alarms  are  unfounded — and  there  is  still  enough  good-will  left 


436 


ALL    IHL    RLSSLAS 


in  this  country  for  Germany,  admiration  for  the  L;rcat  (luahlies 
of  the  Teutonic  people,  and  sympathetic  respect  tor  their  L^reat 
ruler  to  create  the  earnest  hope  that  it  may  he  so — the  fault  is 
her  own.  W'e  ha\-e  heen  lonj;-  enough  in  learning-  to  distrust 
her,  and  it  is  only  as  a  measure  of  self-defence  that  we  now  re- 
gard her  attitude  as  an  additional  reason  for  endeavourimr  to 
adjust  our  national  interests  to  those  of  Russia  and  France. 


lii 

I 
I 


The  reader  will  probably  have  concluded  by  now  that  I  also 
am  an  advocate  of  the  policy  of  securing-  Rnssian  good-will  by 
the  relinquishment  of  Persia  to  her  influence.  That  is  not  quite 
the  case.  I  am  most  earnestly  in  favour  of  a  rapproclicuicnt  with 
Russia,  and  after  long;  consideration  I  do  not  share  the  view 
that  a  Russian  port  on  the  Persian  Gulf  would  necessarily  in- 
volve a  serious  danger  to  the  British  Empire.  Certainly  it  is 
illogical  to  admit  one  rival  Power — to  Koweit — and  at  the  same 
time  see  disaster  in  the  approach  of  another.  But  there  are 
other  aspects  of  the  proposal  in  which  I  see  grave  objections. 
To  begin  with,  this  is  not  a  matter  which  we  should  approach 
like  a  bull  at  a  gate.  It  is  not  the  kind  of  masterpiece  that  can 
be  fondit  (fim  fraif.  I  think  I  know  enough  of  Russia  to  say 
that  to  approach  her  with  a  complete  cut-and-dried  offer,  spring- 
ing from  no  succession  of  events  or  arising  from  no  diplomatic 
dead-lock,  would  l)e  to  invite  certain  rebuff.  She  would  fear 
us  bearing  gifts.  She  would  conclude  that  our  new-found 
friendship  had  its  root  in  weakness,  not  in  conviction.  She 
would  observe  that  not  until  we  had  fought  an  unsuccessful  war 
for  more  than  two  years,  spent  two  hundred  millions  of  money, 
seen  Consols  down  to  92,  lost  twenty  thousand  men,  and  won- 
dered how  we  were  going  to  replace  our  present  army  when 
it  is  disbanded,  did  it  occur  to  us  to  remember  that  we  loved 
Russia  so  much  that  we  would  gladly  make  a  heavy  sacrifice  for 
her   good-will.     This   is   what   she — and   others — would    retort, 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


43 


and  it  may  as  well  be  set  down  bluntly.  We  are  far  too  apt  to 
throw  dust  in  our  own  eyes  in  dealing  with  other  nations.  To 
sav  to  her,  "  Please  take  Persia  and  be  friends,"  for  that  is  what 
the  offer  amounts  to  when  stripped  of  its  diplomatic  foliage, 
would  cause  her  to  draw  two  instant  conclusions:  first,  that  we 
were  in  a  far  weaker  and  more  dangerous  position  than  she  had 
thought;  and  second,  that  we  had  made  up  our  minds  that  we 
could  not  possibly  preserve  our  interests  in  Persia  against  her 
influence.  And  neither  of  these  conclusions  would  be  likely  to 
move  her  to  a  generous  or  a  grateful  response. 

Nor  could  Russia  be  wholly  blamed  for  such  an  attitude. 
We  suffer  here  from  the  multitudinous  errors  of  our  past  policy 
toward  her— now^  hot,  now  cold;  now  abjectly  yielding,  now 
suddenly  voting  millions  for  war  in  a  few  minutes;  now  de- 
ploying our  fleet  against  her  when  exhausted  at  the  moment 
of  victory,  now  casually  admitting  that  we  had  **  put  our  money 
on  the  wrong  horse  ";  now  inviting  her  to  a  port  in  the  China 
Sea,  now  reproaching  her  for  fortifying  it;  now  graciously  re- 
marking that  there  is  "  room  enough  in  Asia  "  for  us  both,  now 
thinking  we  had  cleverly  got  Germany  to  help  us  to  stop  her 
there.  And  as  a  result  of  long  experience  of  our  diplomacy 
Russia  will  take  a  great  deal  of  convincing  that  we  should  stick 
to  any  line  of  policy,  or  that  we  should  offer  more  than  a  forensic 
opposition  to  anything  she  might  do. 

Devoutlv  to  be  wished  as  is  a  cordial  settlement  w^ith  Russia 
of  our  respective  world-interests,  and,  though  there  is  every  op- 
portunity for  it  and  no  insuperable  obstacle  to  prevent,  it  is 
unlikely  to  be  reached  except  in  one  way.  To  deal  with  Russia 
on  equal  terms  we  must  begin  by  regaining  her  respect.  I  do 
not  mean  her  respect  for  our  moral  qualities  or  our  disinterested 
aims;  she  will  probably  persist  in  thinking  us  very  much  like 
other  people  in  those  matters;  but  her  respect  for  our  sagacity, 
our  tenacity,  and  our  strength.  And  w^e  shall  only  accomplish 
this  by  holding  our  own  wherever  we  come  into  contact  with 


r 
Pi} 


fi 


43  B 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAxND 


439 


her — by  never  letting"  onr  words  run  aliead  of  our  intentions,  1)v 
never  forg-etting  that  deeds  are  more  elo(}uent  than  despatches, 
by  never  taking  liold  of  anything  she  desires  that  we  can  weh 
do  without,  and  by  never  letting  go  when  we  have  once  taken 
hold. 

In  saying  this  T  am  prepared  for  the  retort  that  amicable 
relations  are  impossible  with  a  nation  whose  agents  on  every 
outpost  or  contested  field  act  without  much  scruple  on  their  own 
initiative,  while  the  central  authority  is  usually  ready  to  profit 
by  their  indiscretions,  even  while  ostensibly  repudiating  them. 
It  would  be  easy  to  give  a  score  examj)les  of  this — in  fact,  it  is 
a  kind  of  unwritten  understanding  in  Russian  diplomacy  that  a 
distant  agent  may  do  pretty  much  what  he  will  at  his  own  risk. 
If  it  succeeds,  he  is  handsomely  rewarded;  if  it  fails,  he  is  ruth- 
lessly dismissed.  It  is  true,  too,  that  the  Russian  diplomatist 
does  not  act  up  to  the  level  of  Bismarck's  profession,  OfficicI! 
zvird  nicht  gclogcn:  the  late  Count  Muravief  will  always  be  re- 
membered in  diplomacy  for  one  startling  performance  of  this 
nature.*  But  my  reply  is,  first,  that  our  own  \acillation  and 
malleability  have  encouraged  Russia  to  take  liberties  with  us; 
she  does  not  play  these  tricks  upon  Germany  or  Japan.  And 
second,  we  had  better  learn  that  the  obligation  to  speak  the 
truth  to  vour  own  disadvantasre  is  not  considered  abroad  to  hold 
good  in  diplomatic  intercourse.  There  is  no  question  here  of 
''  lying  ";  the  "  lie  "  only  arises  when  there  is  a  recognised  ol)li- 
gation,  as  among  honourable  ])eople  in  ordinary  life,  to  speak 
the  truth.  It  is  not  a  "  lie  "  to  deliberately  give  your  o|)ponent 
by  your  play  a  false  idea  of  your  hand  in  a  game  of  cards;  Russian 
diplomatists — and  most  others — regard  their  work  also  as  a 
game — with  subtler  rules,  for  higher  stakes.  When  thev  score 
against  us  by  taking  advantage  of  what  they  consider  one  of  the 
legitimate  openings,  and  arousing  in  us  a  child-like  belief  in  the 

*  See    "Correspondence   respecting    the  affairs  of  China,"    (China   Xo.  i,   i8c)S), 
passim. 


. —    j 


thins?  which  is  not.  their  satisfaction  and  their  astonishment  are 
eciuri.     Of  course  the  diplomatic  falsehood  must  be  used  rarely 
and  with   discretion,   and  the  diplomatist,   not  a   fool,   who  is 
known  never  to  use  it  under  any  circumstances  enjoys  a  peculiar 
prestige  and  authority.     The  late  Foreign  IMinister  of  a  certain 
Great  Power  was  known  in  diplomatic  circles  as  "  the  biggest 
liar  in  Europe":  his  successor,  on  the  other  hand,  owes  much 
of  his  remarkable  success  to  the  fact  that  he  always  speaks  the 
truth.     I  was  once  talking  to  a  great  foreign  statesman  upon  a 
matter  at  issue  between  another  country  and  my  own,  and  in  an- 
swer to  a  remark  he  made  I  pointed  out  that  the  Foreign  ^lin- 
ister  of  that  other  country  had  just  publicly  declared  the  con- 
trary to  be  the  case.     "  And  you  believe  him?  "  was  the  simple 
reply.     The  British  Ambassador  to  a  Great  Power  once  said  to 

me,"  I  shall  believe  that is  capable  of  deceiving  me  when 

I  f^nd  that  he  has  done  so.  and  not  before."     This  is  the  public- 
school  spirit  in  diplomacy— the  finest  spirit  in  the  world  in  its 
place.  Init  if  I  had  been  Foreign  Secretary  I  should  have  retired 
that  Ambassador  forthwith.     It  would  have  been  better  for  us. 
I  may  add.  if  he  had  been  retired.     I  once  asked  a  Foreign  Min- 
ister for  information  upon  a  certain  point.     "  Why  do  you  ask 
me?"  he  said;  "why   don't  you  ask  your  Ambassador?"     I 
looked  at  him  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  smiled,  and  we  talked 
of  something  else.     His  smile  meant  that  he  knew,  and  knew 
that  I  knew,  that  the  Ambassador  in  question  would  believe 
anything  he  was  told,  and  was  therefore  the  last  person  to  apply 
to 'for  information— a  habit  which  was  the  despair  of  his  subor- 
dinates, who  grew  haggard  coding  despatches  which  they  knew 
conveyed  erroneous  impressions.     But  these  reminiscences  are 
carrying  me  from  the  matter  in  hand,  which  is  that  we  shall  re- 
gain tl^e  respect  of  Russia  in  diplomacy  by  treating  her  with 
honourable  frankness,  and  at  the  same  time  making  it  perfectly 
clear  to  her  that  we  are  not  to  be  deceived  by  any  fair  words  and 
that  anv  arrangement  with  her  must  be  set  down  definitely  m 


440 


ALL    THi:    RUSSIAS 


the  i)on(I.  When  Russian  statesmen  realise  that  a  new  spirit — 
the  spirit  of  efficiency— has  come  into  the  conchict  of  British 
affairs — that  we  are  genuinely  friendly  at  heart,  whether  we  are 
on  the  top  of  the  wave  or  in  the  trough,  but  that  when  we  are  hit 
we  are  absolutely  certain  to  hit  back,  even  if  some  day  we  have 
to  prohibit  their  goods  in  our  markets  to  prevent  the  further 
prohibition  of  our  goods  ni  theirs,  thev  will  be  as  readv  for  an 
entente  as  we  are,  and  then  some  *'  casual  meeting  at  an  inn  " 
will  do  the  rest. 

Now,  to  have  done  with  this  matter  of  Persia,  upon  which 
so  much  hangs,  when  the  entente  comes,  what  form  is  it  to  take? 
In  fairness  this  question  should  only  be  put  to  a  statesman  who 
has  ''  seen  the  correspondence,"  not  to  a  humble  unofficial  stu- 
dent; but  I  have  my  own  notion  of  an  answer,  and  it  is  based 
upon  the  belief  that  the  diplomatic  struggles  and  even  the  wars 
of  the  future  will  not  be  for  territory,  but  against  commercial 
discrimination.      I  see  no  good  reason  in  British  interests  why 
Russia  should  not  develop  Persia  as  a  market  for  her  surplus 
manufactures,  why  she  should  not  bring  her  goods  and  passen- 
gers to  the  sea  through  Persia,  why  she  should  not  have  a  naval 
base  in  the  Persian  Gulf.     But  I  see  excellent  reasons  whv  she 
should  not  come  down  to  the  Persian  Gulf  and  immediately 
extinguish  British  and  Indian  trade  there,  as  she  has  virtually 
done  in  Central  Asia,  by  the  imposition  of  absolutely  prohibitive 
duties.     If  she  would  bind  herself,  by  formal  treatv.  to  admit 
all  foreign  goods  to  Persia  antl  transport  them  upon  Persian 
railways  on   precisely  the  same  terms  as  Russian  goods,   she 
might,  in  my  opinion,  have  Persia  to-morrow,  with  all  the  vast 
advantage  its  possession  would  confer  upon  her.* 

•The  following  passage  in  the  article  entitled  "Russia  and  Kngland."  l)y-'.\ 
Russian  Diplomatist  "  is  also  worth  quoting  both  as  an  example  of  the  use  of  assever- 
ation, instead  of  solid  argument,  in  the  Russian  demand  for  I'ersia.  and  also  because 
in  the  last  sentence  the  writer  apparently  foresees,  and  more  siw,  hastens  to  concede 
at  this  preliminary  stage,  the  suggestion  I  make  here  : 

"  The  geographical  position  of  Russia  and  of  Persia  have  bound  the  essential  inter- 
ests  of   those  two  counIr.es   together  for    more  than  a   century,  and   it  appears   to   us 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


441 


Such  a  treaty,  however,  would  have  to  be  formally  recog- 
nised by  other  nations  besides  ourselves,  so  that  any  infraction 
of  it  would  involve  something  more  than  a  bi-lateral  struggle. 
And  f^rst  of  all  I  should  look  to  the  United  States  to  be  a  party 
to  such  a  compact.  This  is,  I  know,  not  the  common  view  of 
what  the  American  Government  may  be  expected  to  do,  but  I 
believe  the  future  will  see  American  policy  modified  in  this 
matter,  as  it  has  been  so  strikingly  modified  of  late  in  others. 
Captain  Mahan  has  been  quoted  on  the  other  side  in  this  Persian 
question,  and  I  may  draw  from  his  remarkable  insight  two 
striking  passages  in  support  of  my  own  contention: 

Americatis  must  accept  and  familiarise  their  minds  to  the  fact  that  with 
their  irrevocable  entry  into  the  world's  polity,  first,  by  the  assertion  of  the  Mon- 
roe doctrine,  and  since  by  their  insular  acquisitions-above  all,  the  Phtltppmes- 
and  by  the  interests  at  stake  in  China,  they  cannot  divest  themselves  of  con- 
cern, practical  as  well  as  speculative,  in  such  a  question  as  the  balance  of  power 
in  the  Levant,  or  at  the  entrance  of  the  Persian  Gulf. 

As  contrasted  with  the  political  unity  of  Russia  and  her  geographical  con- 
tinuity, the  influences  that  can  possibly  be  opposed  to  her  are  diverse  and  scat- 
tered They  find,  however,  a  certain  unifying  mottve  in  a  common  interest,  of 
unfeuered  commerce  and  of  transit  in  the  regions  in  question.  Itis  upon  the 
rcalisaUon  of  this  interest,  and  upon  the  accurate  apprcctatzon  of  thetr  po^er 
to  protect  it-and  not  upon  artificial  combinations  that  correct  pohcy  or  suc- 
cessful concert  in  the  future  must  rest.  • 

Nothing  could  be  truer  or  more  lucidly  stated  than  the  sen- 
tence I  have  italicised.     Indeed,  it  seems  to  need  only  to  be 

impossible  that   Russia  should   yield  -y  of  her  ac^ui^ed  adva^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Power.     We  therefore  ':-"°'  ^^^.^^"y^^^Y^rOuU      It      'po  sible^.ha,  this  goal  will 
Russia  from   approaching  toward  the  1  ersian  uuii  v  ^ 

not  be  reached  to-morrow,  but  .t  certamly  w>  1  ^e  "  'he  "-.^^^'J^^'^-  J^^y^  ^^e 

partition  of  influence  in  Pers.a  between  I<"^f'^J,f^^„",fto„W  be  imposed  upon  the 

bopleTofl^i^^'^^..r:r;;ot:cXMnar^^^^ 

by  the  needs  of  the  Persian  people.  ' 

The  obvious  comment  upon  the  last  sentence  is  that  tf  no  ™P^<^™™'^,;"!  PIT,^ 
upon  British  trade  in  a  Russian  Persia,  it  would  be  the  one  exception  to  a  hitherto 

invariable  rule. 

*  The  Problem  of  Asia,  pp.  68  and  57. 


442 


ALL   THL    RUSSL^S 


RUSSIA    AND    ENGLAND 


443 


underst(X)(l  to  be  accepted.     For  the  United  States,  hardlv  less 
than  for  Eno-Iand,  oi)en  markets  for  manufactures  are  an  essen- 
tial condition  of  future  welfare,  and  it  is  irrational  in  this  aov 
when  steam  and  electricity  have  annihilated  distance,  that  this 
mterest  should  be  insisted  u|)()n  in  one  part  of  the  world  and  set 
aside  as  contrary  to   tradition   and  policy   in  another.     If  the 
Open  Door  in  China  justifies  an  American  Secretary  of  State  in 
sending-  a  strong  despatch  to  all  the  European  governments  and 
to  Japan,  why  does  not  the  Open  Door  in  Persia?     In  logic, 
therefore,  as  well  as  in  the  pursuit  of  legitimate  and  imperative 
national  interest,  I  fail  to  see  why  the  United  States  should  de- 
cline to  be  a  party  to  a  multidateral  agreement  giving  great 
geographical  and   transit   advantages   in    Persia   to   the    Power 
which  most  desires  and  needs  them,  in  return  for  an  equality  of 
trade  for  all  the  world   there.     Similar  considerations  should 
bring-  about  the  adhesion  of  France,  Italy,  and  Japan.     I  omit 
Germany,  because  she  is  apparently  already  engaged  in  an  at- 
tempt to  extend  her  own  high  tariff  to  that  part  of  the  world, 
but  France  has  not  received  from  Russia  such  treatment  in  the 
matter  of  tariff  as  to  cause  her  to  welcome  the  extension  of  Rus- 
sian duties  to  another  great  part  of  the  world,  and  the  fact  that 
she  has  concluded  a  military  alliance  for  mutual  defence  with 
Russia  is  no  reason  why  she  should  not  do  all  in  her  power  to 
extend   the    market    for   her   own    people's    manufactures    and 
products. 

This  suggestion  opens  up  a  wide  f^eld  for  discussion,  and  it 
would  be  foreign  to  my  general  subject  to  review  the  arguments 
for  and  against  it.  I  hope  to  return  to  it  elsewhere,  so  here  I 
will  only  point  out  that  if  once  adopted  anywhere  this  policy  of 
international  commercial  equality  in  reg-ard  to  the  future  dis- 
posal of  undeveloped  countries  would  acquire  an  almost  irresist- 
ible moral  momentum,  and  would  go  far  toward  removing  from 
mankind  the  shadow  of  several  imminent  wars. 


Finally,  let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  is  the  British 
alternative' policy  toward  Persia,  and  on  this  point  a  recent 
debate  in  Parliament  enables  us  to  speak  with  conhdence.  In 
two  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  Lord  Cranborne  has 
spoken  for  the  British  Government  upon  the  Persian  ques- 
tion.    I  take  these  passages  from  his  speeches: 

Our  position  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  both  commercially  and  politically,  was 
one  of  a  very  special  character,  and  his  Majesty's  Government  had  always  con- 
sidered that  the  ascendency  of  Great  Britain  in  the  Persian  Gulf  was  the  foun- 
dation of  British  policy.  This  was  not  merely  a  question  of  theory  ;  it  was  a 
statement  of  fact.  Our  trade  interests  there  far  exceeded  those  ot  any  other 
countrv  Our  recognised  maritime  supremacy  secured  our  political  ascendency. 
The  policy  of  the  Government  with  regard  to  Koweit  was  to  maintam  the  sta/us 
quo  and  this  they  had  put  forward  with  some  insistence. 

'  You  may  roughly  lay  down  that  our  object  in  Asia  is  to  maintam  the  status 
nuo      I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  that  is  a  statement  to  which  there  may  not  be 
some  exceptions,  but  taking  it  generally,  the  policy  of  England  throughout  Asia 
is  to  maintain  the  status  quo.     That  is  an  advantageous  policy.     It  was  not 
always  our  policy,  because  at  other  times  a  different  policy  was  more  suitable  ; 
but  at  the  present  moment,  with  the  very  great  extension  which  our  Empire  has 
had  of  late  years,  undoubtedly  the  policy  of  maintaining  the  status  quo  is  the 
right  one  for  this  country.     This  is  a  policy  which  may  be  mistaken  for  what 
was  called  by  one  of  the  honourable  members  who  have  spoken,  a  policy  of  drift. 
It' does  not  follow  that  it  is  a  policy  of  drift.     It  is  a  difficult  policy  to  mam- 
tain  because  as  other  countries  advance  a  purely  defensive  policy  must  always 
present    much  greater  obstacles  than  any  other.      What  is  true  of   the  East 
generally  is  true  of  Persia.     We  have  very  large  interests  there.     Far  be  it  from 
me  to  minimise  them  in  the  least.     They  are  interests  of  the  highest  political 
order  vast  commercial  interests  which  it  is  our  wish  and  our  duty  to  maintain. 
We  see  no  reason  why  that  should  lead  us  into  anything  but  friendly  relations 
with  Russia ;  but  although  we  seek  friendly  relations,  I  must  remind  the  House 
thar  those  friendly  relations  are  not  to  be  sought  at  the  cost  of  any  treaty  rights 
we  possess      Whether  to  Russia  or  to  any  other  country,  it  does  not  become  us 
to  ,o  cap  in  hand  for  an  understanding.     Our  policy  is  the  integrity  of  Persia. 
That  unselfishness  is  not  due  to  any  elaborate  moral  motive,  because  it  is  our 
mterest  that  Persia   should   remain   in   its  present  territorial  condition.     But, 
when  1  state  that,  I  ought  to  add  that  there  are  limits  to  that  policy.     That 
policy  cannot  be  pursued  independently  of  the  action  of  other  powers      Wt 
are  anxious  for  the  integrity   of   Persia,  but   we  are   anxious  far  more  for  the 


444 


ALL    THK    RUSSIAS 


balance  of  power;  and  it  would  hv  inipossihlc  for  us.  whatever  the  eause.  to 
abandon  what  we  look  upon  as  our  rij^htful  position  m  Persia.  Especially  is 
that  true  in  regard  to  the  Persian  Culf.  as  I  had  the  honour  to  state  to  the 
House  a  few  days  ago.  It  is  true  not  only  of  the  Persian  (iulf,  l)ut  of  the 
Southern  lYovinces  of  Persia,  and  those  provinces  which  border  on  our  Indian 
Empire.  Our  rights  there,  and  our  position  of  ascendency,  we  cannot  abandon. 
In  the  gulf  itself,  as  I  ventured  to  state  on  the  previous  occasion,  our  ascendency 
is  not  merely  a  question  of  theory,  but  a  question  of  fact.  Our  position  of 
ascendency  is  assured  by  the  existence  of  our  maritime  supremacy. 

More  information  is  often  seciired  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons by  carefully  worded  (juestions  to  Ministers  than  from 
their  speeches,  and  the  above  exposition  of  policy  is  usefully 
supplemented  by  two  answers  which  Lord  Cranborne  made 
about  the  same  time.     Here  is  one: 

The  occupation  of  a  port  in  the  Persian  Gulf  by  any  Power  would  be  incon- 
sistent with  the  maintenance  of  the  s/a/us  quo  which,  as  I  have  already  informed 
the  House,  is  the  policy  of  his  Majesty's  Government. 


And  in  reply  to  an  inquiry  whether  any  exchange  of  views 
had  taken  place  between  his  Majesty's  Government  and  the 
German  Government  as  to  the  selection  of  a  terminus  on  the 
Persian  Gulf,  Lord  Cranborne  said: 

His  Majesty's  Government  have  intimated  to  that  of  Germany  that  they 
are  in  no  way  opposed  to  the  scheme,  in  which  it  is  probable  that  British  capi- 
talists will  wish  to  take  a  considerable  share.  There  has  already  been  some 
discussion  of  the  point  referred  to  in  the  second  part  of  the  question  between 
the  two  governments ;  and  no  decision  with  regard  to  it  will  be  come  to  without 
a  further  exchange  of  views.* 

The  situation  is  therefore  this:  England's  policy  is  the 
status  quo  in  Persia  and  the  Persian  Gulf:  but  this  means  the 
political  and  not  the  commercial  status  quo;  and  the  latter  is 

•These  quotations  are  taken  from  77:^  Times  Parliamentary  reports  of  January 
17,  23,  24  and  25,   1902. 


RUSSIA    AND    KNGLAND 


445 


co,n,«tiWc  with  a  German  raiUvay  to  the  guh"  an.l  a  German 
ternnnns  there,  which  is  aetually  un.ler  discussion  at  th,s 
nionieni   l^etween   luioland  an<l  Germany. 

Such  a  pohcv  is  seh--con(lemne(L  To  suppose  that  Ger- 
manv  will  rest  content  with  a  merely  commercial  outlet,  and 
tlnt^he  will  not  subseciuently  find  insuperable  reasons  for 
fortifvin-  it  and  making  it  a  basis  for  her  ships  of  war  is.  m 
„n-  opinion,  childish.  The  result  will  be  the  fiasco  and  the 
fri'ction  of  Port  Arthur  over  again.  The  British  Government, 
in  fact  is  simplv  maintaining  its  old  policy  of  paper  protests 
acrainst  Russia,  while  yielding  once  more  to  German  pressure. 
And  I  mav  perhaps  quote  my  own  comment  upon  Lord  Cran- 
borne's  statement  in  the  debate  already  mentioned : 

I  hold  that  there  should  be  a  definite  statement  of  the  policy  ot  his  Majesty's 
Government  in  Persia-not  merely  the  policy  of  saying  "  handsoff  "  to  Germany 
and  ■•  hands  off  "  to  Russia,  and  still  doing  nothing,  while  both  countries  stead.l> 
advanced  until  British  interests  found  themselves  between  them  like  a  nut  m  a 
nut-crlcker.  In  conclusion  I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that  if  the  British  policy  is 
simply  to  keep  out  Russia,  more  particularly  by  means  of  any  understanding 
e"refor  otherwise,  which  would  let  Germany  into  the  Persian  Gulf  then  we 
Ire  preparing  for  ourselves  in  the^  future  not  only  grievous  commercial  injury 
but  possibly  also  imperial  disaster.* 

Our  policy,  in  a  word,  is  simply  that  deprecated  so  neatly 
by  Sir  Edwa'rd  Grey  (Under-Secretary  for  Foreign  Atlairs  in 
the  last  Liberal  government)  in  this  debate-"  a  ,>olicy  wh^h 
combines  in  a  most  extraordnnary  way  the  disadvantages  both 
of  vielding  and  of  resistance,  without  getting  the  advantages 
of  either  course."  Lord  Cranl>orne  says  that  we  must  not  go 
"  cap  in  hand"  to  Russia.     Precisely:  but  my  own  contention 

•This  speech  was  of  course  made  before  Lord  Cranborne  had  adn.i..ed  that  Eng^ 
land  had  prLica.ly  consented  lo  a  ^^^^ ;^-;:^^l^:Z^tLl:r  T^e 

admitted. 


446 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


is  that  we  shall  only  arrive  at  <;()0(1  relations  with  her  by  g^oing; 
boldly  cap  on  head — in   Mr.    ^leredith's  delightful  phrase, 

With  hindward  feather  and  with  forward  toe. 


In  considering  this  most  grave  question  of  the  relations  of 
Russia  and  England,  we  must  never  hide  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  it  is  no  easv  matter  for  two  nations  so  dissimilar  in  condi- 
tions,  opinions,  institutions,  and  ideals,  to  arrive  at  harmony  of 
purpose.  Russia  is  an  autocracy :  so  long  as  a  strong  and  con- 
sistent autocrat  rules,  absolute  continuity  of  aim  is  probable.  In 
Great  Britain,  though  persistence  of  view  is  to  be  expected,  rep- 
resentative institutions,  reflecting  a  gust  of  national  passion  or 
modification  of  national  conviction,  may  quickly  register  a 
change  of  policy.  The  accession  of  a  new  autocrat,  on  the 
other  hand,  may  substitute  a  feeble  will  and  a  tickle  atti- 
tude for  strength  and  consistencv.  At  anv  rate,  a  foreig-n 
nation  may  naturally  hesitate  before  staking  some  of  its  most 
vital  interests  upon  the  will,  or  perhaps  only  the  life,  of  one 
man.  I  have  cited  the  opinions  of  leading  Russian  states- 
men, but  for  my  own  part  I  can  see  no  sure  foundation  for 
Anglo-Russian  good-will  except  a  sincere  conviction  upon  each 
side  that  such  would  be  for  its  own  good  and  the  advantage 
of  mankind.  I  shall  be  ridiculed  by  some  for  attributing  any 
weight  to  the  latter  consideration  in  the  case  of  Russia,  but  closer 
observers  will  probably  support  me  in  the  view  that  the  Rus- 
sians, not  less  than  ourselves,  are  a  nation  of  sentimentalists,  and 
even  more  sensitive  than  ourselves  to  broad  philosophical  ap- 
peals. Between  us  and  them  there  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  any 
innate,  permanent  instinct  of  hostility.  The  present  i)opular 
hostility  had  its  roots  in  the  Crimean  War  (a  painful  memory  to 
every  Englishman  who  has  studied  its  diplomatic  origin)  and 
has  developed  of  late  from  causes  easy  to  analyse  if  space  per- 


RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND 


447 


mitted.     Russia  has  one  deep-rooted  and  ever-present  national 
antipathy,  probably  dest.ned  to  exhibit  Uself  some  day  .n  flam- 
,„g  colours  to  the  world,  but  it  is  not  toward  England.     She 
has  sharp  suspicions,  and  n.deed  anxiet.es,  regardmg  the  a>ms 
of  another  nation,  but  this  is  not  ourselves.     If  a  conflict  ^Mth 
us  were  as  likely  as  her  newspapers  profess  to  believe,  her  news- 
papers would  never  be  permitted  to  chronicle  their  behe    m  ex- 
cited language  day  by  day.     They  fling  their  sparks  into  wha 
is  non-exi^osive;  if  it  were  gunpowder,  their  pyrotechnics  would 
speedily  be  damped  down.     Indeed,  the  hand  of  authority  has 
turned  the  hose  on  this  fiery  press  once  or  twice  when  there 
has  been  real  danger  of  a  conflagration. 

At  the  present  moment  the  conditions  are  perhaps  not  favour 
able  for  a  reconciliation  and  settlement.     We  should  gravely  err, 
however,  in  my  opinion,  in  -S-^ing  ourselves  as  more     iso- 
lated •'  than  others,  whether  our  isolation  be     splendid     or  the 
reverse      The  prestige  of  our  government-of  a  group  of  in- 
d     duals-has  suf?ered_not  the  prestige  of  the  British  peop  e.* 
fwould  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  respect,  not  to  say  fear  ent  rs 
Lre  often  into  the  feeling  of  foreign  statesmen  toward  us  to- 
day than  at  any  previous  period  of  our  modern  history.     The 
spectre  of  isolation  makes  more  wakeful  couches  than  ours.     If 
e  roofs  could  be  lifted  off  the  Foreign  Offices  of  Europe  and  a 
glance  cast  into  their  recesses,  I  fancy  that  the  uneasiness  pre- 
vailing in  unsuspected  places  would  go  far  toward  reassun  g 
Britons  concerning  their  own  position  in  the  world.     Therefore 
we  may  await  with  comparative  equanimity  the  development  of 
a  rapprochcmcut  based  upon  geography  and  upon  history,  upon 
sentiment  and  upon  interest.     I  believe  it  will  come  m  time-if 

cember.  1901,  p.  S^i- 


I  ' 


i! 


r  vl 


% 


448 


ALL   THE    RUSSIAS 


not  to-day,  then  to-morrow.  When  it  comes  it  will  show  how 
little  exaggeration  there  was  in  the  words  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas 
L  to  Sir  llatnilton  Seymonr  he  fore  the  terrihle  hlnnder  of  the 
Crimea,  ''Let  England  and  Rnssia  arrive  at  an  nnderstanding : 
the  rest  is  nothing."  And  with  its  inevitahle  conseqnences  it 
will  do  more  than  any  other  conceivahle  event  in  I^nrope  to 
bring  abont  a  realisation  of  the  ideal  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  11., 
and  to  connect  in  imperishable  glory  with  his  name  a  new  secu- 
lar era  from  which  to  reckon  human  progress — A.O.P.,  Ab  orbc 
pacificato,  "  From  the  Pacification  of  the  World." 

Postscript. — On  the  day  that  the  foregoing  chapter  is  passed  for  press,  the  Brit- 
ish Government  has  issued  a  most  momentous  Agreement  between  (ireat  Britain  and 
Japan,  signed  in  London  on  January  30,  1902.  relating  to  the  maintenance  of  the  s/iUus 
quoin  China  and  Corea.  After  declaring  that  the  two  powers  are  "entirely  unintlu- 
enced  by  any  aggressive  tendencies  in  either  country,"  and  defining  their  common  in- 
terests to  be  "the  independence  and  territorial  integrity  of  the  Empire  of  China  and 
the  Empire  of  Corea,  and  in  securing  equal  opportunities  in  those  counfies  for  the 
commerce  and  industry  of  all  nations,"  the  Agreement  proceeds  as  follows: 

Article  II. — If  either  Creat  Britain  or  Japan,  in  defence  of  their  respective  inter- 
ests as  above  described,  should  become  involved  in  war  with  another  Power,  the  other 
High  Contracting  Party  will  maintain  a  strict  neutrality,  and  use  its  efforts  to  prevent 
other  Powers  from  joining  in  hostilities  against  its  ally. 

Article  III. — If  in  the  above  event  any  other  Power  or  Powers  should  join  in 
hostilities  against  that  ally,  the  other  High  Contracting  Party  will  come  to  his  assist- 
ance and  will  conduct  the  war  in  common,  and  make  peace  in  nmtual  agreement 
with  it. 

Article  ir. — The  High  Contracting  Parties  agree  that  neither  of  them  will,  with- 
out consulting  the  other,  enter  into  separate  arrangements  with  another  Power  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  interests  above  described. 


CONCLUSION 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
RETROSPECT   AND    PROSPECT 

AFTER  four  journevs  made  under  the  most  favourable 
con<litions  for  seeing  and  hearing,  after  thirty  thousand 
niiles  of  travel  in  Russia-heat  and  cold.,  river  and  mountam, 
^vheat  field  and  cotton  field,  desert  and  steppe,  empty  country 
an<l  crowded  capital-what  is  the  upshot  of  h  all,  what  are  the 
domhiant  superficial  h.^pressions  left  "1'°"°'- %"^'"^\ 

Vastness  of  area,  of  course,  to  begin  w.th.  The  extent  of 
the  Russian  En.p.re  .s  almost  terrifying.  The  Br.t.sh  Emp.re 
is  enormous,  too.  but  though  one  may  have  seen  most  of  u.  a 
similar  impression  of  totality  is  never  produced,  for  .t  ,s  scat- 
tered over  the  world  and  <livided  by  great  seas.  Russ.a  is  a 
,,,,,le-vou  could  walk  from  Archangel  to  Kushk.  and  from 
Helsingfors  to  Vladivostok.  The  great  Russian  mystery  is 
how  ah  this  .s  governed  from  the  chy  on  the  ^eva.  The  world 
has  never  known  such  centralisation. 

^  Aeain    and  similar  to  this  first  impression,  the  apparently 

inexhaust'ible  variety  of  races.    In  Central  Asia  you  come  upon 

a  companv  of  recruits:  they  are  Poles  and  Finns.     A  Pers  an 

carries  vour  baggage  at  Baku.     Your  servant  m  Siberia  ,s  a 

Circassian.    Your  guide  at  Tiflis  is  a  Mingrehan.    The  Russ,  n 

officer  who  took  Merv  is  a  Mussulman  native-General  Ali- 

khanoff:  vou  see-Ah  Khan -off?     Great  Russians  and  Little 

Russians.' Cossacks  of  the  Don.  and  Cossacks  of  the  Lrals. 

Germans  an<l  Jews  and   Greeks-never  did  so  multifarious  a 

crowd  bear  a  single  name. 

It  is  obvious,  one  might  conclude,  that  with  so  vast  and 

449 


t  If 


4SO 


ALL     rUL    RUSSIAS 


\"aric(l  a  territr)r\',  and  so  lui^c  aii-l  etlmoloijicallv  variec^atcd 
a  population,  the  natural  ])cnalty  of  centralisation — (jui  trap 
emhrassc  )iial  ctrcint — must  be  in  process  of  development.  The 
Russian  Empire,  from  its  very  size  and  promiscuitv,  must  l)e 
showing  signs  of  going  to  pieces?  There  are  thoughtful  Rus- 
sians who  see  danger  in  this  direction,  and  declare  it  would 
l)ecome  acute  if  Russia  took  Constantinople.  I  can  only  say 
that  few  such  signs  are  outwardly  xisihle.  11ie  sacred  person- 
ality of  the  l\sar  and  the  hea\y  hands  of  the  authorities  in  St. 
Petersburg  are  just  as  e\ident  and  just  as  inevitable  on  the 
circumference  as  at  the  centre.  Russia  re\olves  as  smoothly 
as  the  well-welded  fly-wheel.  So  long  as  no  [law  develops, 
nothing  could  be  more  impressive  or  more  powerful  than  the 
Hy-wheel. 

After  the  vastness  of  country,  the  mixture  of  pe()|)les,  and 
the  centralisation,  comes  the  impression  of  strength.  Russia  is 
indescribably  strong.  Her  strength  makes  you  nervous.  It 
is  like  being  in  the  next  held,  with  a  golf  jacket  on,  to  an  angry 
young  bull.  The  bull  does  not  realise  that  the  gate  is  there 
to  stop  him — therefore  it  will  not  stop  him.  Russia  walks 
rough-shod  over  and  through  obstacles  that  an  older,  a  more 
civilised,  a  more  self-conscious  country  would  manamvre  around 
for  half  a  century.  She  wants  Siberia — she  takes  it.  She  wants 
Central  Asia— she  takes  it.  She  wants  ]\)rt  Arthur— she  takes 
it.  She  wants  Manchuria — she  is  taking  it.  She  wants  Persia 
— we  shall  see.  A  constitutional  Finland  is  in  her  way — con- 
stitutional Finland  must  become  a  Russian  province.  Russia 
has  suffered  of  late  from  an  acute  hnancial  and  conuuercial 
crisis,  intensified  by  the  hea\\-  cost  of  the  rising  in  China  and 
the  relief  of  famine.  In  view  of  this,  one  would  expect  to  see 
all  ex])ensive  national  enterprises  postponed,  or  at  least  cur- 
tailed. Xot  at  all.  Fverything  proceeds  as  regularlx  as  though 
a  million  roubles  came  floating  down  the  Neva  ever\  morninu". 
The  Great  Siberian  Railway  is  being  pushed  along  at  all  speed. 


RLTROSPKCT    AND    PROSPECT 


451 


The  armv  is  being  increased.  The  navy  is  being  strengthened 
rapidly.  Railways  are  1)uilding  to  the  German  frontier,  to  the 
Austrian  frontier,  in  the  Southern  Caucasus,  in  Central  Asia. 
During  the  ten  years  enchng  in  1899  18,000  miles  of  railway 
were  constructed.  In  1899  alone  the  increase  was  2,640  miles. 
And  everywhere  that  Russia  reaches  she  erects  handsome  and 
permanent  buildings— railway  stations,  cathedrals,  administra- 
tive offices,  barracks.  Few  provincial  towns  in  Europe  or 
America  have  theatres  and  museums  as  fine  as  those  of  far-off 
Irkutsk  and  Tifiis. 

The    strength    of    Russia,   again,    strikes   you    in    the    inex- 
hausti1)le   masses  of  her  common  people.     They  are  physically 
vigorous,   they   can   live   on    a   Chinaman's   daily   expenditure, 
they  are  wholly  illiterate,  wholly  superstitious,  absolutely  obe- 
dient, even  to  death,  to  what  they  are  told  is  the  will  of  the 
Tsar,   and    they   are   increasing   in   numbers   at   an    astounding 
pace.-^'     Recruits   may  be  seen   with  a  band  of  straw  twisted 
round  the  arm  to  show  them  which  is  their  right  hand.     If  a 
couple  of  hundred  thousand  of  them  are  needed  to  increase  the 
armv,  thev  weep  and  go.     If  they  must  be  sacrificed  in  shoals 
to  win  a  battle,  well,  they  are  never  missed  except  each  group 
in  its  own  village,  and  not  much  there.     There  are  two  countries 
in    the    world    where   flesh   and   blood    are    cheap— China   and 
Russia.    This  is  the  strength  of  the  one;  it  will  be  the  strength 
of  the  other  if  ever  she  is  organised.     I  was  once  discussing 
the  relations  of  England  and  Russia  with  a  travelled  Russian 
officer  as   we   walked   through   a  barrack   square.      "Do   you 
know  whv  we  should  always  beat  you  in  the  end?"  asked  my 
companion.     As  he  spoke  we  came   to  the  sentry,  who  was 

-^  In  the  fortv-six  years  from  1851-1897  the  population  of  the  Russian  Empire  increased 
crper  cent  'in  the  last-named  year,  according  to  Prince  Krapotkin,  it  was  123,- 
o.i  113  of  which  94  millions  were  in  European  Russia  proper,  and  35  millions  m 
t^he'non' Russian  provinces  of  the  Empire,  divided  as  follows:  Finland,  2f  millions; 
Poland.  9i  millions;  Caucasia,  9f  millions;  the  Kirghiz  Steppes,  3i  millions;  Trans. 
Caspia  and  Turkestan,  4i  millions  ;   Siberia.  5f  millions. 


it 


'  \\ 


■  m 

\1 


45^ 


A\A.     I  HI      RlSSl  AS 


w'lried  a  torn!* 'ry.  aiiil  ^n  Im^r  ;i!!(l  ctliiioli  (O-icalh-  wirioi^^'ited 
a    poj)ii]alin]i,    the    natural    ]>cnah\-    (>l'    cniiraiiNatit  m — (jui    tri^p 

cmbrassc  jual  iirciiit-- iiui:-t   \k  in  |)r<*rc>>  wf  (lc\  cl' ipmcnt.      Tlic 

Russian  Junpire.  from  it>  \(T\-  ^i/c  and  pr*  •miscnnw  nin>t  l)e 
sliuwing-  signs  o\  i^'miii^  t'»  pieces?  dlicrc  arc  tliou^luful  Rus- 
sians wlu)  sec  daui^er  in  this  direction,  and  declare  it  would 
l)ec()nie  acute  if  Ivussia  took  Constantinople.  1  can  onlv  say 
that  few  such  sii^ns  are  outwardlx'  \isil)le.  The  sacred  person- 
ality of  the  Tsar  and  the  hea\y  hands  of  the  authorities  in  St. 
Petersburg-  are  just  as  e\ident  and  jusi  as  niexitahle  on  the 
circumference  as  at  the  centre.  RusMa  rexoKes  as  sni(K)thly 
as  the  well-welded  tly-wheel.  So  lonj^-  as  no  flaw  dexelops, 
nothino-  cou'd  be  more  impressi\e  or  more  powerful  than  the 
tlv-wheel. 

After  the  vastncss  of  country,  the  mixture  of  peo])les,  and 
the  centralisation,  comes  the  im])ression  of  streni^th,.  Russia  is 
in(lescril)al)ly  strong.  Her  strength  makes  you  nervous.  It 
is  like  being  in  the  next  field,  with  a  golf  jacket  on,  to  an  angrv 
\oung  l)ull.  The  bull  does  not  realise  that  the  gate  is  there 
to  stop  him — therefore  it  will  not  sto})  him.  Russia  walks 
rougli-shod  over  and  through  obstacles  that  an  older,  a  more 
civilised,  a  more  self-conscious  countr\  would  maudnivre  around 
for  half  a  century.  She  wants  Siberia — she  takes  it.  She  wants 
Central  Asia — she  takes  it.  She  wants  Port  Arthur — she  takes 
it.  She  wants  Manchuria — slie  is  taking  it.  She  wants  Persia 
— we  shall  see.  A  constitutional  Mnland  is  in  her  wav — con- 
stitutional iMuland  must  become  a  Russian  |)rovince.  Russia 
has  suffered  of  late  from  an  acute  fuiancial  and  connnercial 
crisis,  intensified  by  tlie  hea\\-  cost  of  the  rising  in  China  and 
the  relief  of  famine.  In  view  of  this,  one  would  expect  to  see 
all  expensi\e  national  enterprises  |)ostponed,  or  at  least  cur- 
tailed. Xot  at  all.  hAerything  proceeds  as  regularh'  as  tliougli 
a  million  roubles  came  iloating  down  the  W'va  everx  morning. 
The  Great  Siberian  Railwax   is  being  pushed  along  at  all  speed. 


RETROSPFCr    AM)    PROSPECT 


451 


Tlie  arniv  is  ])eing  increased.  The  navy  is  being  strengthened 
raj. idly.  Railways  are  building  to  the  ( lerman  frontier,  to  the 
Austrian  frontier,  in  the  Southern  Caucasus,  ni  Central  Asia. 
])nring  the  ten  years  ending  in  1899  iS,000  miles  of  railway 
were  constructed.  In  1899  alone  the  increase  was  2,640  miles. 
And  evervwhere  that  Russia  reaches  she  erects  handsome  and 
permanent  buildings— railway  stations,  cathedrals,  administra- 
tive otlices,  barracks.  Few  ])rovincial  towns  in  PAirope  or 
America  have  theatres  and  museums  as  fine  as  those  of  far-off 

Irkutsk  and  Titlis. 

Tlie    strength    of    Russia,   again,    strikes   you    in    the    inex- 
haustible  masses  of  her  common  people.     They  are  physically 
vigorous,   they   can   live   on    a   Chinaman's    daily   expenditure, 
they  are  wholly  illiterate,  wholly  superstitious,  absolutely  obe- 
dient, even  to  death,  to  what  they  are  told  is  the  will  of  the 
Tsar,   and   they   are   increasing   in   numbers  at  an   astounding 
])ace.*     Recruits  may  be  seen   with  a  band  of  straw  twisted 
round  the  arm  to  show  them  which  is  their  right  hand.     If  a 
couple  of  hundred  thousand  of  them  are  needed  to  increase  the 
army,  they  weep  and  go.     If  they  must  be  sacrificed  in  shoals 
to  win  a  battle,  well,  they  are  never  missed  except  each  group 
in  its  own  village,  and  not  much  there.     There  are  two  countries 
in    the    world    where    flesh   and   blood    are    cheap— China   and 
Russia.    This  is  the  strength  of  the  one;  it  will  be  the  strength 
of  the  other  if  ever  she  is  organised.     I  was  once  discussing 
the  relations  of  England  and  Russia  with  a  travelled  Russian 
officer  as   we   walked   through   a  barrack   square.      "Do   you 
know  whv  we  should  always  beat  you  in  the  end?"  asked  my 
companion.      As  he  spoke  we   came   to  the  sentry,  who  was 

*  In  the  fortv-six  years  from  1851-1897  the  population  of  the  Russian  Empire  increased 
(Pper  cent  'in  the  last-named  year,  according  to  Prince  Krapotkin,  it  was  123.- 
o.i  113  of  which  94  millions  were  in  European  Russia  proper,  and  35  millions  m 
t^he'non-Russian  provinces  of  the  Empire,  divided  as  follows:  Finland,  2f  millions; 
Pcl.md.  9i  millions;  Caucasia.  9!  millions;  the  Kirghiz  Steppes,  3^  millions;  Trans- 
Caspia  and  Turkestan,  4i  millions  ;    Siberia,  5^  millions. 


o 


45- 


Al.l.     IHl,    Rl  ^NlAS 


stanain-    ngid    at     tiic    -alutr,      ToiK-hirt-    tlu-'    mati 


upMii    tlie 


hrea^t/hc   oniUuucd:    "iVcaiiM;    we   can    lu.c   a    iiuiiarcd    ili^^i- 
saiui  (.1   tliesc  witlieiit    Icclm-   it   m  any  way."     The  hrnlal  but 
true    remark    sug--e^l>    the    relleelion    that    a    pecuhar    ^trenoth 
belnnos    to    KusMa    frnni    the    fact    that    the    more    eivihsed    her 
neio-hbuiirs  become,   while  she  ^tan(l^  stih— that  i>.  the  -reater 
the  value  they  set  upon  human  life  m  general  and  the  higher 
the   respect    attaching-   to   the    individual    man— the    stront^er    m 
proportion  does  Russia  become,  for  the  more  dearly  in  compari- 
son are  her  rivals  ever  paying  for  their  counters  in  the  game  of 
war.      Up  to  a  certain  point,  in  other  words,  the  civilisation  of 
Russia's  enemies  is  a  millstone  about  their  necks,      it  must  not 
be  supposed,  however,  that  this  brute  force— this  cheapness  of 
flesh   and   blood— is   the   only    strong   side   of   military    Russia. 
The  enthusiasm  and  contklence  of  all  her  officers,  and  the  intelli- 
gence and  training  of  a  large  number  of  them,  are  also  striking 
factors.      A  competent  haiglish  military  critic  wrote  of  the  last 
army  manoeuvres:    "  Certainly  no  class  of  men  conld  be  more 
whole-hearted  in  their  work  than  the  staff  officers  with  whom 
I   have   come    in   contact.      With   a   great   enthusiasm    for   the 
routine  of   their    i)rofession,    they   appear   to   combine   a   wide 
interest,  not  only  in  military  history,  but  in  even  the  minutest 
details  of  contemporary  war." 

Among    the    impressions    left    by    study    of    contemporary 
Russia,   however,   perhaps   the   most   interesting  is  that   of  an 
approaching  social  change.     Hitherto,  speaking  generally,  there 
was  no  artisan  class— no  great  social  stratum  below  the  nobility 
except    the    illiterate,    stupid,    kindly,    superstitious    peasantry. 
The  growth  of  industry  is  ])roducing  such  a  class— a  proletariat. 
Association    in    large    numbers,    the    discussion    of   affairs,    the 
influence   of   the   fluent    speaker,   the   circulation    of   the    news- 
paper, the  use  of  machinery,  residence  in  towns— all  these  com- 
bine to  confer  a  certain  education.     With  this  rough  education 
come  new  aspirations  and  the  consciousness  of  ability  to  realise 


Ri;TROSi>!XT    AM)    iTiO^RirT  453 

^1,em       Wii'^n    a   dozen    men    insist   upon   something   hnlierto 
aeni.d  tlaan.  a  i.niceman  UK.    n.ove  them  O.U  a  luu.lred  m^ 

,,,-  he  di.persed  by  a  troop  of  ^cndanncs:  hve  hnndreu  nu-n 
,,,;,  be  .urrounded  bv  a  regiment  of  Cossacks.  l>ut  when 
,,;,  r,r  three  thousand  men  demand  a  change,  for  m^tance.  m 
,o,r.  of  labour,  and  not  n.  one  town  only  hut  n.  half  a  dozen 
towns  sinufltaneously,  their  demand  must  l)e  considered  on  us 
„,erit.  This  means  a  new  class  and  a  new  era  n.  Kussia- 
,  ,,,al  modtflcation  of  a  society  hitherto  resting  upon  the  two 
;fllars  of   autocracy   and   theocracy.     The   labour  question 

has  been  born  in  Russia. 

In  this  there  is.  so  far.  little  of  a  revolutionary  tendency. 
The   share  of  the  workmen  in  the  students"   disturbances  has 
b  "/exaggerated,   and   the   students  themselves  are   wuhout 
IhtK-afons  to  lead  any  great  n.oven.ent.     The.r  v.ews  are 
L  the  drean,s  of  disordered  intellectual  d,gest,on-the  workers 
Ln^selves  will  soon  leave  then,  behind.     The  trans.t.on  from 
l.r.culture  to  industr.aUsm  has  been  so  sharp  a  change  that 
some   labour   .liff^culties  were   inevitable   at   the  outset.     The 
Russian  peasant  does  not  easily  accommo.late  himself  to  r,ew 
conditions,  nor.  on  the  other  hand,  does  the  Russian  employer. 
Both  have  to  modify  their  habits  to  suit  their  new  env.ron- 
ment      Rut   this  industrial   development   was  both  right   and 
inevitable   in   a  country   possessing  the  boundless  natural    re- 
sources of  Russia.      Perhaps  it  has  been  unduly  burned,  but 
that  ,s  the  Russian  way-to  be  very  slow  in  adoptmg  a  new 
principle,  and  then  to  embody  it  in  act  and  fact  w.th  a  rapuh  y 
that  takes  away  the  breath  of  an  observer    rom  less  confi  en 
cou,Uries.     The  Russian  authorities  have  the  great  advamage 
of  beginning  with  the  accumulated  experience  of  other  nations^ 
Mreadv  their  attitude  toward  labour  is  far  more  modern  and 
emanci,,ate<l    than    one   would    have    expected   it    to   be    and 
unless  1  misread  all  the  signs  the  future  relations  of  employer 
and  ■  emploved  in  Russia  will  be  moulded  by  the  democratic 


tl 


I 


i 


454 


VI. L     I  III,    RISSIAS 


for  want  of  a  hcttcr  wor.l      cniiditions  winch  prevail  in  otlicr 

aspects  of  RiisMaii  life;  as  c\liibitc(l.  for  iiisiancc,  m  ilic  lacl 
that  the  nio^t  powerful  M miller  the  hanpire  has  ewer  had 
be.i;-an  as  a  modest  oiif^loyc  in  a  distant  provnieial  railway 
station.  1  should  not  he  surprised  if  I  lived  to  see  industrial 
co-i)artnership,  for  example,  adopted  as  a  primary  condition 
of  production  and  distribution  in  Russia  before  any  other  nation 
has  advanced  so  far  on  the  road  to  the  solution  of  the  old 
antao-onism  of  monev  and  men.  I  know  that  such  a  view  will 
sound  utoi)ian  to  many,  especially  to  the  "  old  resident  in 
Russia,  hut  it  should  he  hornc  in  mind  that  Russia  starts  m 
this  matter  from  tiie  point  we  have  reached  with  so  much  difti- 
culty  and  at  such  cost,  and  that  to  her  a  new  theory,  practical 
or  ethical,  of  social  rclationshii)s  is  not  the  susi)ected  and  dis- 
quieting- thing  it  is  to  us. 


I   , 


If  I  have  said  comparatively  little  in  this  hook  ahont  the 
difhculties  and  dangers  which  may  l)eset  Russia  in  the  future, 
to  warp  her  line  of  jirogress  and  mar  her  prosperity,  it  is  he- 
cause  most  writers  seem  to  me  to  liave  <lwelt  overmuch  on 
such  topics  and  to  have  done  less  than  justice  to  her  achieve- 
ments and  her  jirospects.  I'.ut  1  would  not  have  it  thought 
that  1  am  hlind  to  such  considerations.  1  am  no  believer  in 
any  revolutionary  upheaval,  though,  of  course,  the  possihility  of 
social  disorder  cannot  he  overlooked,  hut  in  spite  of  her  indus- 
trial progress  and  natural  resources,  it  may  he  that  the  financial 
and  commercial  ta.sk  she  has  undertaken  will  prove  too  great 
for  her  strength  without  foreign  financial  assistance,  that  her 
own  action  may  prevent  this  being  given,  and  that  theref<ire 
a  long  period  of  stagnation  is  before  her.  I  do  not  thnik  so. 
Indeed.  T  am  convinced  to  the  contrary,  hut  I  recognise  the 
possihility.  She  may.  of  cnursc.  fall  upon  war  with  an  equal 
Power,  and  this  would  be  h>  her  the  greatest  of  all  calamities 
in   the   present   stage  of  her   development.     But    I    am   certain 


RKTR()SPl-,Ci-    AND    PROSFKCT 


455 


that  il   i^  her  rulerV  fixcl   resolve  to  -  seek  peace  and  i)ur^ue 
it."     C  ertam  nnnor  antl  distinct  .litiiculties  undoubtedly   await 
her.     For  example,  her  nol)ility  as  a  class  is  virtually  insolvent, 
its  great   estates   gone   through  mismanagement,   its  fortunes 
prodigally  squandered.     \ast  areas  of  land  are  mortgaged  to 
the  Agrarian  Banks,  and  many  millions  of  acres  have  been  sold 
under  foreclosure.     In  1899  these  banks  had  advanced  1.351-- 
518.884  roubles  upon  landed  estates,  in  number  89.084.   and 
in    total   area    over    117.000.000   acres.      During   the   previous 
t^ve  years  the  number  of  mortgaged  estates  increased  by  22.675. 
and  'the  amount  of  the  mortgages  by  over  300.000,000  roubles. 
In  most  of  these  cases  the  original  owners  have  no  longer  a 
rouble  of  interest  in  their  properties.     Societies  of  peasants  are 
in  many  cases  the  purchasers,  and  the  State,  which  has  often 
helped  the  proprietors  before,  is  considering  a  scheme  to  assign 
large  grants  of  agricultural  land  in  Siberia  to  the  now  landless 
class.     But  the  Siberian  peasants  will  naturally  not  view  this 
process  with  favour,  and  the  men  who  have  failed   to  make 
land    ])ay   in   Russia  would   hardly   succeed  better  in   Siberia. 
Here,  then,  is  a  grave  problem,  the  solution  of  which  is  not 
apparent.     Another  is  presented  by  the  inability  of  the  Cos- 
sacks, the  pioneers  and  guardians  of  every  Russian  advance, 
to  a.ljust  their  peculiar  feudal  institutions  to  the  circumstances 
of  modern  life,  and  the  consequent  decline  in  their  numbers 
and  prosperity,  and  the  difificulty  in  which  many  of  them  find 
them.selyes  even  to  provide  the  horse  and  equipment  (the  State 
furnishing  only  their  rifle  and  ammunition)   which,  with  their 
personal  service,  is  the  return  they  make  for  their  land.     Above 
all    there  is.  of  course,  the  danger  that  further  bad  harvests 
may  render  whole  districts  finally  desolate.     Still  another  dan- 
ger  is   the  corruption   and   peculation   which  prevail   m  many 
public  departments  among  underpaid  officials. 

Mv  own  conviction,  however,  is  that  these  and  other  dift- 
culties    and    dangers    are    small    in    comparison    with    Russian 


^  -n 


It  * 


454 


ALL    ■Till-:    RUSSIAS 


RKIVROSIMXT    AND    PROSPi;CT 


455 


for  want  of  a  hi-tlcr  \\.n-<l      coihiitii  .ii^  wliicli  prcwiil  in  '-tlier 

as])ects  of  Ku-sian  lite;  a-  cxlnhitcd.  for  u\>\:iniv,  ni  ilic  fact 
that  tlic  nio>t  ])o\vertnl  MuiistcT  the  hanpna-  h:i-^  c\cr  ha.l 
hes^-aii  as  a  modest  cmf'lin'i'  ni  a  (h>tam  |)rovnicial  railway 
station.  1  should  not  he  surprised  if  I  hved  to  >ee  in(hi-tnal 
co-i)artiiership,  for  example,  adopted  a^  a  primary  eondition 
of  production  and  distrihution  in  Russia  before  any  otlier  nation 
has  advanced  so  far  on  the  road  to  the  st)lution  of  the  old 
antag-onism  of  money  and  men.  1  know  that  such  a  view  will 
sound  Utopian  to  many,  especially  to  the  "  old  resident  "  in 
Russia,  but  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  Russia  starts  m 
this  matter  from  the  point  we  have  reached  with  so  much  diffi- 
culty and  at  such  cost,  and  that  to  her  a  new  theory,  practical 
or  ethical,  of  social  relationships  is  not  the  suspected  and  dis- 
quieting thing  it  is  to  us. 


If  I  have  said  comparatively  little  in  this  book  about  the 
difficulties  and  dangers  which  may  beset  Russia  in  the  future, 
to  warp  her  line  of  progress  and  mar  her  prosperity,  it  is  be- 
cause most  writers  seem  to  me  to  have  dwelt  overmuch  on 
such  topics  and  to  have  done  less  than  justice  to  her  achieve- 
ments and  her  prospects.  But  I  would  not  have  it  thought 
that  I  am  blind  to  such  considerations.  1  am  no  believer  in 
any  revolutionary  upheaval,  though,  of  course,  the  i^ossibility  of 
social  disorder  cannot  be  overlooked,  but  in  si)ite  of  her  indus- 
trial progress  and  natural  resources,  it  may  be  that  the  financial 
and  commercial  task  she  has  undertaken  will  prove  too  great 
for  her  strength  without  foreign  financial  assistance,  that  her 
own  action  may  prevent  tliis  being  given,  and  that  therefore 
a  long  period  of  stagnation  is  before  her.  I  do  not  think  so. 
Indeed,  T  am  convinced  to  the  contrary,  but  T  recognise  the 
possibility.  She  may,  of  course,  fall  upon  war  with  an  equal 
Power,  and  this  would  be  t(.  her  the  greatest  of  all  calamities 
in   the   present   stage   of   her   development.     But    I    am   certain 


tliat  it  i>  luT  ruler':-  fixed  re>ol\-c  to  "seek  |)eacc  an<.l  fiiir^ue 
It."  L'ertam  rnnior  and  distinct  difficulties  iiiKhjiibtedl}  await 
her.  For  example,  her  nobility  a^  a  class  l^  virtuall)'  m^ol\■elll, 
its  great  estates  gone  through  mismanagement,  its  fortunes 
prodigally  sqtiandered.  \'ast  areas  of  land  are  mortgaged  to 
tlie  Agrarian  Banks,  and  many  millions  of  acres  ha\e  been  sold 
under  foreclosure.  In  1899  these  banks  had  advanced  1.35^-' 
518,884  roubles  upon  landed  estates,  in  number  89.084,  and 
in  total  area  over  117,000,000  acres.  During  the  previous 
live  years  the  number  of  mortgaged  estates  increased  by  22.675, 
and  the  amount  of  the  mortgages  by  over  300,000,000  roubles. 
In  most  of  these  cases  the  original  owners  have  no  longer  a 
rouble  of  interest  in  their  properties.  Societies  of  peasants  are 
in  many  cases  the  purchasers,  and  the  State,  which  has  often 
helped  the  proprietors  before,  is  considering  a  scheme  to  assign 
large  grants  of  agricultural  land  in  Siberia  to  the  now  landless 
class.  But  the  Siberian  peasants  will  naturally  not  view  this 
process  with  favour,  and  the  men  who  have  failed  to  make 
land  pay  in  Russia  would  hardly  succeed  better  in  Siberia. 
Here,  then,  is  a  grave  problem,  the  solution  of  which  is  not 
apparent.  Another  is  presented  by  the  inability  of  the  Cos- 
sacks, the  pioneers  and  guardians  of  every  Russian  advance, 
to  adjust  their  peculiar  feudal  institutions  to  the  circumstances 
of  modern  life,  and  the  consequent  decline  in  their  numl)ers 
and  prosperity,  and  the  difficulty  in  which  many  of  them  find 
themselves  even  to  provide  the  horse  and  equipment  (the  State 
furnishing  only  their  rifle  and  ammimition)  which,  with  their 
personal  service,  is  the  return  they  make  for  their  land.  Above 
all,  there  is,  of  course,  the  danger  that  further  bad  harvests 
may  render  whole  districts  finally  desolate.  Still  another  dan- 
ger  is  the  corruption  and  peculation  which  prevail  in  many 
public  departments  among  underpaid  officials. 

My  own  conviction,  however,  is  that  these  and  other  diffi- 
culties   and    dangers    are    small    in    comparison    with    Russian 


'  -  -•   W-- 


4s6 


ALL    I  Hi.    KLSSLAS 


strength  and  reMunxcs.  Xo  one  who  rciiicnihcr-.  the  past  can 
duubt  of  her  future.  A  glance  at  the  inap  d  the  u.uid  is 
ahiiost  a  sufticicnt  basis  for  optinii>lic  foreca^t^  eniuennn-  her. 
The  character  and  aims  ot  the  Tsar  luniself  warrant  the  hap- 
piest auguries. 

Russia  is  going  aheail— that  is  my  conclusion,*     It  is  foohsh 
and  unscientific   to  judge   her   solely   by   the   foot-rule   of  our 
older   and  .lifferent   civilisation.     She   should  be  measured  by 
a    standard   deduced   from   her   own   past,   her  own    period   of 
existence,  and  her  own  racial  character.     Then  it  will  be  seen 
that  she  stands,  so  far  as  virtue  and  vice  go  in  a  national  devel- 
opment,   very   much  where   the   rest   of   the   nations  do— that 
only   the  Judge   who  is  able  to  cast   u])  very   long  debit   and 
credit  accounts,  in  a  very  grea.  ledger,  can  strike  a  true  bal- 
ance.    For  the  rest,  she  excels  most  luiroi)ean  nations  in  her 
vivacity   of  intellectual   outlook,   in   her   insouciant  courage  to 
affront'  great  diiflculties.  in  her  freedom  from  traditional  an<l 
theoretical  top-hamper,  and  in  her  absolute  confidence  in  her 
own  glorious  destinv.     Beyond  this,   no  nation  in  the  world, 
save  perhaps  America,   can   vie  with  her  in   lavish   wealth  of 
natural  resources,  and  when  we  ad.l  that  she  has  never  lacked 
the  guidance  of  statesmen  of  profound  sagacity  and  almost  reck- 
less courage,  and  that  her  present  all-powerful  l-.mperor  is  a 
man  inspired,  beyond  all  question,  by  lofty  ideals,  it  should  be 
clear  that  the  twentieth  century  must  count  Russia  as  one  of 
its    greatest    factors    in    the    movement    and    development    of 
hum^an  societv.     I  trust  that  this  series  of  studies  of  Russia  of 
to-dav   mav   have   helped   a   little   to   bring   home    these   con- 
clusions,  in    the   interests   of   peace   and    good-will   and   com- 
merce, to  readers  on  both  sides  of  the   Atlantic. 

*  Lord  Kosel>erv,  whose  insight  into  foreign  affairs  is  unequalled  hy  that  oi  any 
statesman  of  our  l.me,  has  recently  written  ..I  Rus>ian  poUey  as  f, allows  :  ••  1  here  is 
one  signal  qual.ty  which  I  specially  admire  in  the  policy  <.f  Russ.a.  It  .s  pract.cally 
unaffected  l>v  the  life  <.f  man  or  the  lapse  of  lime-ii  m..ve>.  on.  as  u  were,  by  u-  own 
impetus;  it 'is  silent,  concentrated.  perpetu.al,  and  unl.ruken;  it  K,  theref.ire.  success- 
ful." — Qiiiilti'iu  of  l'.ml''ri,  p.  27. 


.# 


*■»»  J»'     5M*      %»*     afi!      IJft  ^  *IM     ffK      ■ 


APPENDIX 


I   rouble  =  lOO  kopecks. 

I   rou])le  =  2s.  1.3765(1.  or  f 0.1057;   £i.  =  94575  roubles. 

I   rouble  =  $0.5145;  $i.  =  1.9433  roubles. 

I    verst  =  0.6628  mile;    i  mile  =  1.5085  verst. 

I   poud  =  36.1 128  tbs.  or  0.0161  ton. 

I   ton  =  62.0278  pouds. 

I   kopeck  per  poud  =  1.31 17s.  per  ton. 

I   rouble  per  poud  =  o.7027d.  per  tb.,  or  £6.5585  per  ton, 

I   rouble  per  poud  =  $0.1.425  per  tb.,  or  $31.9175  P^r  long  ton. 

I   kopeck  per  verst  =  £0.001595  per  mile. 

I   rouble  per  verst  =  £0.1595  per  mile. 

I   poud  moved  one  verst  =::  0.01068  ton  moved  one  mile. 


457 


■bWirfbrfB»'*x..« 


,.     •— ».  -„•■-«,..         »     •*"      ■**.T;      *   .- 


INDEX 


Abkhasians,  176 

Accicienls  in  works  and  manufactures, 

precautions  against.  381,  382 
Adana.  Britisli  railway  from,  to  Medi- 
terranean, 259 
Afghanistan — 

Bokliaran    trade    with,    future   pos- 
sibilities of.  294 
Distance  of  Moscow  from  frontier 

of.  via   Alexandrof-gai.  266.  267 
Herat  fortified  by.  419,  iiotc 
I\3sition  of.  270 

Russian    relations    with,     242;    de- 
cline of  Russian  trade  with.  285 
I'rans-Caspian     water-supply     con- 
trolled  by.   276 
Agriculture   (sec  also  (irain)  — 
Bashkirs  of.    129 
Black  earth  districts.  369 
Cereals,  production  of,  42:  decrease 

in  yield  of  1901.  386,  note 
Depression    in,    369.    386.    note:   ex- 
penses in  mitigation  of  bad  har- 
V.  >ts,  3r)6 
Important  position  of.  368 
Aigun.   Convention   of.   100 
Aksakof.  ^^2 
Alcohol- 
Poisonous    quality    of    vodka,    2>?^- 

358 
Price  of.  358 

State  monopoly  of.  356-358 :  hope- 
ful prospects  from,  370 
Alexander  II.,  Tsar — 
Apartments  of,  15-17 
Chernaieff's  disregard  of,  280 
Church  in  commemoration  of.  8,  18 
Germany,   attitude  toward,  396 


Alexander  III.,  Tsar — 

Alcohol     monopoly     advocated    by, 

357 
Germany,   attitude  toward.    396 
Alexander.  King,  of  Servia,  404 
Alexander,   Prince,  of  Bulgaria.  394 
Alexander       Michaelovitch.       Grand 

Duke,  cited,  264 
Alexandretta  -  Hit     railway     scheme, 

263,  }iote  t 
Ambassadors,  credulity  of.  439 
America — 

Fergana,  enterprise  at.  343 
Foreign   capital,   condition ^   for  in- 
vestment of.  compared  with  those 
in  Russia.  384 
Isolated  position  of.  388 
Persia,  interest  in.  441 
Russian   attitude  toward.  409,   410 
Trans- Alaskan  railway  project.  154. 
note 
Amer-Darya.      Alexandrof-gai     route 

from  Moscow  to.  2(^'^'2()'j 
Amer-Darya    (Oxus)   Ri\er — 
Arnold's  lines  on.  24^) 
Bridge  over.  244.  245 
Amur  River — 

Discovery  of.  by  Russians.  98 
Navigation  on.  123.  124 
Ananur,   198 
Andijan — 
Cotton  district  of,  341  ;  export  from, 

254 

Garrison  at.  2'/'^ 

Prison  at.  279 

Railway  to,  249 
Annenkof,  General.  237 
"  Appanages,"  Imperial,   180,  zyy 


459 


'»  ,  '^  '  "^    * 


,  jp^'^^    *.tj«*^%»   ^*Mef#i<'4 


^immk 


,--,    J»    -».!...»X    IV  li    ».  ..'.»  J  »»^  ».«  f^.t.'.V   .-' 


460 


IN  DFX 


Apsheron  Peninsula,  oil  areas  in, 
224 

Arabs  in  Trans-Caspia,  275 

.Irha.  281 

ArclKeological  treasures.  Russian  neg- 
lect of,  333  and  note 

Area  of  Russian  lunpire,  vastness  of, 

449 

Armenia,  massacres  in,  German  atti- 
tude toward,  399 
Armenians — 

Characteristics  of,  214 

Trading  by,  at  Kushk  Po.^t,  242 
Army — 

Characteristics  of.  44 

Length  of  service  in,  89  </;/(/  ;/<'/(' 

Mobilisation  of.  for  diplomatic  pur- 
poses,  241,   418 

Pay  in,  44 
Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  246.  281 
Asia,  sec  Central  Asia.  Siberia,  etc. 
Askhal)ad — 

Administrative      head(iuarters      at, 
272,  278 

Discourtesy  at.  231 

Garrison  of,  239.  277,  27S 

Military  headquarters  of  Turkestan 

at,  277,  27^ 
Mixture     of     I^a^t    and     \Vc<t     in. 

Railway  from,  projected.  218.  note 

Trade  statistics  refused  at,  285 
Assignats,     policy    of.     formerly    ap- 
proved by  M.  de  Witte.  354 
Astrachan   (wool).  292,  295.  29^) 
Austria — 

German  attitude  toward,  407-409 

Internal  condition  of.  406 

Roumanian    convention    with,    399, 
404 

Russian  relations  with.  403 

Servian  relations  with,  399,  403 

Baghdad  railway  scheme,  256, 
note  t,  257-259.  400.  402,  427 

Baikal.  Lake,  119;  distance  of,  from 
Moscow,  140 

"Baikal"   (steamer),  119-122 


Baku— 

IVtroletnn  industry  at,  219-226,  374, 

Spinning    mills    at,    advantage^    of, 

343 
Balakhani,   oil-wells  at.    219-224 
Balkans,    political    situation    in    the, 

403-405 
Baltic   Provinces.  5,  6 
Baranchiki,    122 
Barracks,    pictorial    display   of   duties 

i".  39 

Ba>hkirs.   129 

luitehas.  301.  302 
l-5ath  at  Titlis,  213 
Batraki.    130 
Batuin— 

Military  road  between  Kars  and, 
217 

Railway  from,  protit^   of.   180 

Begg.ir   and   general'^    wife,   anecdote 

"f.  .^!^.  39 
Belgian  C(»inpany-proni<»terv,  effect  of, 

on    Ru'>:>ian    industrial    condition, 

^72 
Bender  Jes>eh,  2^(\  note  t 
Bimetallists,  O2 

Bismarck — 

P>riti^h  antipathy  of.  433 
Russian  policy  of.  389,  394.  395 

Blandain,  3 

Blennerhassett,  Sir  Rowland,  quoted, 
407  ;  cited,  428 

Bobeikof.  General.  HH 

Boer  War — 

China,  influence  on  British  position 

ill.  435 
Foreign    policy   generally,   influence 

on.  258.  437 

German  comment^  on,  432:  pr(v 
posed  anti-British  coalition,  state- 
ment regarding,  434 

India's  risk  during.  418 

Mahan.  Captain,  view  of,  regard- 
ing, 447.  note 

Russian      general's      reference      to, 

339 
Bogolinbof,  Lieutenant- Colonel.  272 


'.:..t,-i' '.,'".■--  <^  .v..  »■•■.'>■- •••^.» 


«  ;  >      f        /^,    V^K,  .  f  ^.     «*    V,'*"'.*  *'"    '^■.•*      .*'■ 


"*%)  «^***    ^   %„,*?■.-■-     A    .»    r*"    $\ 


INDKX 


461 


Bokhara — 

Amir  of.  2^7.  288.  291 

"  Ark  "  of.  305 

Army  of,  288.  289 

Aspect  of.  246 

Barbarities  of,  288 

Bazaar   of.    299-301  ;    throat-cutting 
in,  247.   2SS,  290 

Brass  work  of.  299.  300 

Costume  of.  247 

Disease  in.  298 

Foreigners  disliked  in.  297 

Freedom  of  natives  (jf,  247.  297 

Gold  mines  near.  295 

Grain  imports  to.   293 

Hotel  d'luirope  in.  2SS 

Jews  in.  2()g 

Khuz  Begi  of.  304-307 

Manufactures  established  at.  294 

Minar  Kalan    (tower)   of.  308 

Mohannnedanism  in.  303 

Prison  of.  309.  313-31^ 

Revolt    in.    against    Amir,    not    im- 
piobable.  291 

Russian    relations    with.    287,    288. 
290-292 

Silk  and  velvet  of,  299.  300 

Trade  with.  287.  292-296 

Women  in.  302.  303 
Borki  catastrophe.  352 
Brass  work  of  Bokhara.  299.  300 
Brest-Litovsk  fortress.  402.   note  * 
Brunnhofer,       Professor      Hermann, 

quoted,  256,  note  t 
Budget,  see  under  Finance 
Bulgaria,    Russian    inHuence    in.    398, 

403 
Bunge,  M..  352.  357 
Bushire,  Russian  influence  in.  422 
Busra,  British  shipping  at.  425 

Calendar.  Russian.  42.  61 
Camels.  191.  192.  239.  273 
Canada.   b""innish  emigration  to.   84 
Capital  and  labour  problem,  30 
Carpets,  27y27S 
Caspian,  crossing  of,  229 
Caucasus    {see   also  Georgia) 


Cauca-U'-— 

Alcohol,   sale  of,  not   a  State  iiiijn- 
opoly  in,  358 

Climate  of.   179 

Mineral  wealth  of.    178-180,   376 

Oil-wells   in.   219-22O 

Political  condition  of,  213.  217 

Races  of,  I7() 

Railway   development    in.    217,    218 
and  note,  401 

Routes  to,  164 

Wine  of.  180.  193.  209.  210 
Cellulose  industry  in  Finland,  77 
Central   Asia — 

British  trade  in.  decline  of,  239.  255. 
293.  299.  440.  441 

Foreign  capital,  field  for.  376 

Foreigners,  dislike  of.  297,  320.  347 

Garrison  of,  in  ordinary  time'-,  278 

Mussulman  rising  in.  possil)ility  of. 

289 
Railway  routes  in — direct   strategi- 
cal. 265,  266;  proposed.  20().  2()7  ; 
best    commercial.     268;     Russian 
and  Indian  connection.  270,  271 
Trade  statistics  in.  Russian  secrecy 
regarding.  285 
Centralisation     of     Russian     Govern- 
ment. 449.  450 
Cereals   {see  also  Grain),  production 
of.  42  ;  decrease  in  yield  of  ( 1901  ) , 
386.  note 
Chahel    Dokhteran,    railway    to.    240. 

note 
Charjui    (Amu-Darya).    Alexandrof- 
gai   route  from   Moscow   to.  265- 
267 
Chelyabinsk.   134,  135.  268 
Chernaevo.  248.  280 
Chernaieff,  General,  279.  280,  283,  284 
China — 

British  policy  in.  415.  435 
Development  of,  416 
German  claims  in.  39().  3(>S.  434 
Japanese  war  with.  Furopean  inter- 
vention after.  396.  410 
Russian    anxieties    regarding    fron- 
tier with,   416 


ft' 


462 


INDl  X 


Cliinesc — 

l*""ir>t     contact     of     l\.ii-.>iaii^     with, 

Irkutsk,  in.  149.   150 

Kashgaria,  rule  in.  347 
Ciiurch,  Orthodox — 

Position  of.  ()i 

Tolstoy  cxcomnumicated  by.  56 
Churches     in      Russia,     number     and 

wealth  of.  9 
Coal  — 

Donetz   basin.  i)r()-pects  in,   376 

Imports  of.  j>7S 

New  Russia  Comiiany's  possessions 

in,  379^  .V'^o 
Production    of.    statistics    of.    33<) ; 
production  in   ICS92  and   1900,  370, 
note 
Siberia,   in.    155 
Cole.  Rev.   Mr..  313.  note 
Conunerce.  see  Trade 
Conolly,   Captain   Arthur — - 
Letter  from,  quoted.  309 
Mission  of.  30() 
Murder  of.  2^S,  ^\2.  313.  ^l7 
Convicts — 

Irkutsk,  at.   159-1^'! 

IJcense  of.  in   Siberia,   IJO 

Sakhalin,  at.   162 

Siberian    railway,    emphnnient    nn. 

119 
Train  of.  T3<^.  T39 
Cooke.       Mr..      British      Commercial 
Agent  in   Russia,  quoted,  .\7^'.^7^ 
Copper  in  Siberia.  156 
Cossacks,     decline     in     numbers     and 

prosperity.  455 
Costliness    of    living — in    Russia,     in: 

in  Irkutsk.   149 
Cotton — 

Freight  charges  on,  267 
Goods,   statistics   of   procUiction   of. 
359:  production  in  1892  and   k/X). 
370.  note 
Profit    of.    in    Turkestan,    as    com- 
pared with  wheat.  2fK) 
Route  of  exports  of,  from  Central 
Asia,  267 


Spninmy  ;in(l  wea\  nig  of,  28-.^!; 
])ri>lits  (ii,  _^74 

'i  ran-  C  a'-pian  e.xp'Tt  of,  275;  ex- 
port trom  Andijan.  254;  from 
Bokhara,  292 

Turkestati.   growth   of.    30,   31,    341- 

343 
I'nderclothing  of.   21 
Country   lite  in    Riis'^ia,  65 
Courtesy  df  Russian  otticials.  231.  236 
CranbdiiK'.      \'i-c<iiint.      <|iioted,      42'), 

443  445.   44f. 
Crete,   (ierman   sh.are    in    bU)ckade  of, 

Crimean   War    - 

I-'ncnd-.     societ\-     .u',     responsibility 

regarding.  03 
llo-tile     feeling     con-eciuent     ujx.n, 

447 

Petropa\  lofsk,    Russian    .succes>    at, 

100 
Sali-bury,    Lord,    \  lew    of,    regartl- 
mg.  414 
Cur/on.    Lord.  (jUntrd.  420.   430 
Custom   ilouse  ohicials.  5 
Cu->tom^ — 

Per-i;m,  Rn^-^iaii  control  of.  422.  423 
Ru--i;in.  high,  .^v.;  :  increase  in.  dur- 
ing 1 00 1 ,  3()<),  iidte 
Czech-.   40O  4()() 

D.xRiKi..  dorgt'  of.    172.   173.    i8S-]()0 

l)ebt,   iiaiKinal.   .vrr   under    b^inance 

1  )e])orlat!(  in.    102  and   ;/('/,- 

Dervi-h    sect.    religi<sii-    nte-    of,    2()0. 
2()I 

Diplomacy- - 

Russi.an,  character  of.  414,  438 
IVuth-telling   and   crcdulux'    in.   439 

Donetz  co;d    basin.   370 

I  )ouie.    Mr..    I  10 

r)re>fus     case.     the.      T'tl^ioy'^     view 
of,    54 

Drinks,   hars    for.    non-existent   in   St. 
Petersbtirg.  21 

Driving — 

Charges  ft)r,    19.  22 


I   ' 


u 


1 N  D  i:x 


4^3 


Driving — 

Georgia,  in.   181.   I97,   ^9^'^  ^^^^^  ^'^' 
181.  note 

Method  of,   14 
Drunkenness — 

Measures  against.  357.  35^ 

Prevalence   of,    21,   43,   44-    50^  y:)^y 

Dual   Alliance — 

French  view  of.  391 

Nature  of.  3^9-  390.  442 

Result  of,  390.  391 

Scope   of.  390.  393.   f^^^f^' 

Tolstoy's  view  of.  54-  '^^'f'-'' 
Duffield.  Mr.  W.   B..  quoted,  407 
Dukhobortsi.  tenets  of.  41 
Dukhovski.  General.  281.   282 
Dushet.  200 

E.\STER    GREETING.    CUStOm    of,    39 

Eastward   movement   of   Russia,    lOO, 

101 

Economic  policy  of  Russia,  summary 
of.  by  M.  de  Witte.  359-36i 

Education — 

Cost  (»f.  in  Russia,  :^^6.  note 
Deficiency  in.  2,  19.  39  fl"<^  ''^^^^-  40. 

356 
Finland,  in.  80.  S^ 
Tashkent,   in,   2S2,  283, 
Ekibas-tuz.  coal  at.   155 
Elbrutz.  Mount,   191  and   note 
England,  see  Great  Britain 
Exhibition  of  British  Arts  and  Indus- 
tries to  be  held  in  St.  Petersburg. 
376.   note 
Exiles  to  Siberia,  number  of,  in  1898, 

161 
Export  of  iron.  371 
Eydtkuhnen.  3 

F.xMixF.s  IX  RfssLV.  4-2.  369 
Fash(^(la    incident,    Russian    influence 

regarding.  391 
Eaure.    President    Felix,    visit    of.    to 

Russia.   390 
Ferdinand.  Archduke.  408 
Ferdinand.  Prince,  of  Bulgaria,  39<^ 


Fergana — 
Administrative  centre  of.  278,  341 
American  enterprise  in.  343 
Revolt  at.  290.  343 
Fever  in  Central  Asia.  240-242.  277 
Finance — 
Budget — 

Character  of,  367,  368 
French  compared  with.  350 
Report  on  Budget  of  1902.  by  M. 

de  Witte.  386.  note 
Surplus  in,   364.  3>(io 
Customs  duties,  high.  ^7'^  '•  increa-e 

in,  during  1901,  s6g.  note 
Debt,  national — 
Amount  of,  363 
Decrease     in,     during     last     ten 

years,  364.  386,  note 
Interest  on.  366 
Security  for.  364.  3^>6 
Foreign  capital — 

Baku  petroleum  industry  due  to, 

374.  37S 

Conditions     afforded     to     invest- 
ment of,  384,  385  and  note 

Openings  for.  374.  37^^ 

Russian  attitude  toward,  360,  361 
Loans — 

France,  floated  in.  391 

Official  assurances  regarding.  366. 
note 

Reasons  for.  365.  366.  n.ote 

Redeniption  of.  364-  3(^5  «"(^  notes 
Ministry  of — 

de  Witte.  M..  appointed  to.  354 

Scope  of  work  of,  3(^2 
Misconceptions  regarding.  363.  3^7- 

384 
Revenue — 

Alcohol,  from  sale  of.  358 
Forests,   mines,   and   agricultural 

property,  from,  349-  3^^ 
Peasants'    land,    from.    349.    3^M : 

arrears     of     rent     written     off. 

369 
Railways,  from,  350.  364.  367  ^"^ 

note  * 
Taxes.  382 


\  ^1 


t 


*  '*  L 

Id 


t  ll 


gijpnnr^j'^rw^'''*^ 


4 
I 


iL  - 


464 


INDEX 


INDEX 


465 


IL 


Finance — 
Taxes — 

Trustworthiness  of  Russian  State, 

384 
Finland — 

Alcohol,  sale  of.  prohibited.  65.  80 

Annexation    of.    by    Rus>ia.    po>>i- 
bility  of,  94.  95 

Area  of.  74 

Cheapness  of  living  in,  91 

Civilisation  of.  64 

Climate  of,  64.  74.  79 

Constitution  of,  terms  of,  86,  87 

Exports  of,  74,  77 

Helsingfors,  ()8.  69.  71-73 

Landscape  in,  74.  75 

Languages  of.  67 

Military  regulations  for.  88.  89  and 
note 

Poetry  of.  70 

Population  of,  74 

Races  in,  79 

Rapids  of,  76 

Religions  of.  83 

Russia,  relations   with.  84-93 

Saima  Canal,  67 

Savings  in,  83 

Schools  in.  80.  83 

Sveaborg,  71 

Tariff  of.  91  and  note 

Towns  in,  83 

Viborg,  67 

Women,  position  of.  80 

Wood-pulp  industry  of,   76-78 
Finns — 

Characteristics  of.  64.  70 

Customs  of.  80 

Devotion  of.  to  Alexander  IL.  71 

Emigration  of,  to  United  States  and 
Canada,  84 

■VLiritime  ability  of,  79 

Types  of,  79.  88 
Foley.   Mr.    (Indian   Tea   Association 
representative),  quoted,  423,  424 
Food — 

Peasants,  of.  44 

Restaurants,   in.  21 
Force  jnajcurc  sanction,  90 


l'"or(l.   Mr.   Alexander   Hume,  quoted, 

367.   jiotc  t,   374 
I'oreign  cai)ital — 

Baku    petroleum    industry    due    to, 

374.  .^7S 
Conditions   afforded    to   investment 

of.  384,  385  ajui   note 
Openings  for.  374,   376 
Russian  attitude  toward.  360,  361 
Foresight    of    Russian     methods.    22, 

231.   2},7,  2>^2,   334 
Fore>ts — 

Foreign  capital,  opening  for,  376 
Revenue  from,  349,  364 
France — 

British  relations  with.  432 

Budget  of — arrangement  (^f,  368  and 

note:  deficit  in,  ^73>,  392.   note 
German  attitude  toward.  391,  392 
Mitylene,  seizure  of,  393,  note 
Persian  Ciulf.  acquisition  of  coaling 
station    on.    prevented    by    Great 
Britain,  427 
Rus>ia — 

Loans  to.  3(^)6.  note,  391 
Relations  with.  54.  note,  389-391 
Tariff  of.  442 
Frontier-post     l)etween     luirope     and 

Asia.  132 
Frontiers  of  Russia,  388,  416 
Furnished  rooms  (noinera) — at  Tash- 
kent, 281  ;  at  Samarkand.  335 

Galicia.     Russian     railways    toward, 
402,  note  * 

Gatchina,  7 

Genghiz  Khan.  174,  320 

Geok  Tepe,  235-237 

Georgia  (see  also  Caucasus)  — 

Military  road  in,   181.   182.   187.   188, 

196-198 
Political  condition  of.  214-217 
Russian  acquisition  of.    174 
Women  of,  209 

Germany — 

Austria,  attitude  toward.  407-409 
Baghdad    railway    scheme    of.    256, 
note  t,  257-259.  400.  402.  4-^7 


I 


Germany — 

British  attitude  toward.  394.  397^ 
398.  432.  435.  445  ;  German  atti- 
tude toward  Great  Britain.  43^* 
435  ;  British  understanding  with, 
402.  note  t.  446.  note 
China,  claims  in.  396,  398.  434 
Financial  condition  of,  ^7^ '-  finan- 
cial   relations    wdth    Russia.,    354' 

355 
France,  attitude  toward.  39i.  39^ 

Frontier  of.  3 

Los  Ton  Rom  movement  in,  408 

Naval  development  of.  433 

Pan-Germani>m,  407-409 

Persia,    aim>  in.  445.   446;   railway 

scheme   in.    256.   note  t.    257-259, 

2()i,  262 
Russia — 

Attitude  of.  400.  ^o\  and  note,  ^i^ 

Attitude  toward,  435 

Exports  to,  2)7^ 

Relations  with.  394-398.  400-402 

Turkey — 

Assistance  to,  in  Greek  War,  399 
Policy  regarding,  389 
Goats,  183.   184.  248 
Gold   mines — 

Bokhara,  near,  295 

Blicit  buying  of  gold  at  Irkutsk.  150 

Mongolian.  415 

Output  of.  in   Russia  in  ten  years, 

375 
Siberian,   150-152.  155,  375 

Gold    standard,    reforms    of    M.    de 
Witte  regarding.  355.  35^ 

Goremykin.    General.    Governor-Gen- 
eral of  Irkutsk  Government,  119. 

157 
Grain — 

Central  Asian  imports  of,  269.  2Q3 
Elevator  for,  at  Novorossisk,  378 
Low  price  of  wheat  in  Eastern  Rus- 
sia. 129 
Production  of.  42 ;  decrease  in  yield 

of   (1901),  386,  note 
Siberian  production  of.   154:  prod- 
uct during  1900,  370 


Great  Britain — 

Afghanistan    secured    from    Russia 

by,  277 
Alcoholic  consumption  in.  compared 

with  that  of  Russia.  356 
Baghdad  railway  scheme  subject  to 
consent    of.    402;    understanding 
regarding.  402.  note,  446.  note 
Central  Asian  trade  of,  decline  in. 

239.  255.  293.  299.  440.  441 
China,  policy  regarding.  41 5-  435 
Consuls    of.    attitude    of    Russians 

toward,  338.  339 
Exhibition  of  British  Arts  and  In- 
dustries to  be  held  in  St.  Peters- 
burg. 376.  note 
Foreign  policy  of — 

Boer    War's    influence    on.    2}.^, 

435.   437 

Russian  view  of.  414.  437 
France,  relations  with,  432 
German   attitude  toward.  43^.  435 : 

British  attitude  toward  Germany. 

394.  397.  398.  432.  435.  445 
Merchants'    p'.  ice    li.sts    from,    2^77- 

note  * 
Persia,  see  that  title 
Quetta-Siestan    railway   project    of, 

264.   424 
Russia — 

Attitude  of,  385.  "^^^^  4I4.  4^8 
Entente  with— possibility  of.  413: 
form    of,    440;    importance    of. 

448 
Overtures    from.    262.    263,    385. 

note 
Suspicion  against.  414 
Greece.  Turkish  war  with.  399 
Grey,  Sir  Edward,  quoted.  446 
Griffin,    Sir  Lepel,   quoted.   265.    u.>fe 
Grover,  Captain.  3^1 
Growth  of  industry  in  Russia.  452 

Hanauer,  Mr.,  Vice-Consul-General, 

quoted,  37^ 
Handy,  Mr.,  119 
Heather  in  Russia,  6 
Helsingfors,  68.  69.  71-73.  84 


f^ 


;  n 


\  I 


c 


^^tewMmm 


466 


INDEX 


INDKX 


'6^ 


!.• 


f: 


F,.,, 


Herat,  419  and  note 
Hilkoff,  Prince,  234 
Horse,  extinction  of  Turcoman  breed 

of,  275 
Hughes,  John,  3/8,  384 

Ignatieff,  M..  288 

Illiteracy  in  Russia,  2,  19.  39,  40,  356 

India — 

Diplomatic  value  of,  to  Russia,  241, 

418 
Hours'   distance   of,   from  London, 

if     railway     connection     between 

Kushkinski   Post  and  New  Cha- 

man,  271 
Responsibilities     in     administration 

of,  419 
Russian  invasion  of — 
Expectations  as  to,  416 
Opportunity  for,  418 
Russian  view  of,  417 
Industrial  development  of  Russia — 
Drawbacks  of,  50 
Efifect  of,  44 
Importance  of,  t>2 
Outlook  of,  374 
Statistics  of,  359-  370-  "<^^t' 
Tolstoy's  view  of,  52 
Irakli  the  Great.   I74 
Irkutsk- 
Costliness  of  living  in.  149 
Crime  in.  148 
Founding  of.  08 
Gold  laboratory  in.  150,   151 
Goremykin,      General,      Governor- 
General  of,   1 19.   ^57 
Importance  of.   146-148 
Journey  to,  from  Moscow,  time  of, 
114;  time-table   of,    115:   ^^^^   '^f- 
1 16 
Mountainous  district  of.  113.  M^ 
Population  of.   146 
Prison  of,  157- 161 

Iron — 

Belgian   company    swindles   regard- 
ing. 372 
Exports  of,  37 T 

Imports  of.  371.  375 


Iron — 

New  Russia  Company's  works.  379- 

384 

Outlook  of  the  industry,  374 

Price  of  goods  fixed  by  Govern- 
ment, 383 

Production  of,  statistics  regarding, 
359;  production  in  1892  and  1900, 

370,  note 
Tests  imposed  on  manufacturers  of, 

by  Government,  3^2,  383 
Ural   Mountains  ricli  in,    133;  Ural 
works,  156 
Isolation  not   peculiar  to  Great  Brit- 
ain, 447 

Japan— 

Chinese  War,  European  interven- 
tion after,  396.  410 

Isolated   position   of.   388 

Korea,  position  in.  4' ' 

Manchuria  exclusion  of  trade,  atti- 
tude toward,  415 

Naval  and  military  .strength  of, 
410 

Russian  overtures  to,  411 

Jasper,   134 
Jew< — 

Bokhara,  in.  2o<) 
Tra^^-Cas]>ia.  in.  2JS 
Wolff.     Rev.     Dr.     Joseph— quoted, 
2^)7,  313;   career  of,  3ic^-3l3 
Joint-stock  roinpaiiies,   Russiiui.  ^^^yj 
founial   ('/'   Vnianchil  Statistics  cited. 

34<),   lu^tc 
Journey    to    St.    Petersburg.    2^8:    to 
Irkutsk.     102  11^)-.     to     Tashkent. 
228-249 

K.M^ri-,  area  of.   204 

Kamchatka.  coiKiuest  of,  q8 

Kamenoi.   13 

Kapnist.  Count  Vladimir.  263 

Karachi,  distance  of.  from  London, 
if  railway  connection  between 
Kushkinski  Post  and  New  Cha- 
man.  271 

Karakul,  292,  295.  296 


r 


n 


h 


Kar< — 

Military  road  between  Batum  and, 

217 
Railway  to.  203 
Kasbek.    Mount.    173.    191    and    note, 

196 
Kashgar.    telegraph    to.    via   WTiioye. 

347 
Kashgaria — 

Chinese   rule  in.  347 

Russian   line  of  expansion  through, 

348 
Katkof.  M..  351 
Kazalinsk,  292 
Khaharofsk — 

Founding  of,  98 

Railway  from,  to  Vladivostok.  123 
Khaidalovo,  124 

Khaketia.  wine  of,   180,  209,  210 
Kharbin,    railway   from,   to   Port   Ar- 
thur.   124,  Jiotc,   125 
Khartum   (near  Audi j an).  344 
Khorassan — 

Russian  relations  with,  255,  277 

Trans-Caspian  trade  with,  294 
Kiakhta,    possible    route    of    Siberian 

railway  through,   125 
Kiao-chao,  seizure  of,  396 
Kirghiz — 

Costume  of,  280 

District  of,  275 

Travellers,  344,  345 

Villages  of.  2t>7 
Kizil  Arvat.  277 

Koenitzer  &  Co.,  Messrs.,   165,  166 
Kokand,  341 
Kolymsk.   161 
Kopek,  value  of.  268 
Kopet   Dagh  Mountains,  275 
Korea,  situation  in.  411 
J\i>niiIoz',  activity  of.  in  Persian  Gulf, 

264.  421 
Koweit — 

Demonstration  at,  260 

Flag  incident  at,  261.  note 

German  aims  regarding,  259 

Tripoli   railway  to,   scheme  of,   263 
and  note  t 


Kraii    1  Per-iaii  coin).  279 
Krapotkiii,    Prince,   (jiiotcd.   452.    u('>:e 
Krasnovodsk.     230.     231.    234;     route 

from   (journey  and  distance^,),  to 

Tashkent.  249 
Kremlin,  the.  24.  2^.  27,  2^2 
Krivei-rog.   379.    380 
Kuroitatkin.  (ieneral.  88.  236 
Kushk.    distance    of.     from    Moscow 

\  ia  Alexandrof-gai.  2()6.  267 
Kushkinski  Post — 

Diplomatic  demonstrations  at.  418 

Garrison  life  at.  242.  243 

Railway   to.   240:   railway  to.    from 

Indian    frontier,    suggested.    270, 

271 

Laboi'r — 

Capital  and.  problem  of,  30 
Question,  birth  of,  453 
Supply  of,  reforms  of  M.  dc  Witte 
regarding.  361.  362 
Land — 

Imperial    (''appanages").  180.  277 
Peasants,    revenue   from,   349.   364 ; 
arrears     of      rent      written      off, 

369 
Tax  on,  in  Turkestan.  342 

Landscape — 

Finnish.  74.   75 

Russian.  6.  7.   167 
Siberian.   135-138.   140.   141 
Trans-Caspian.  234.  2y:..  243 
Ural  mountain  district,  131 
Larovary.  General,  405 
Leroy-Beaulieu,  Tsl.  Paul,  quoted.  368, 

note 
Lesghians,  176,  207 
Lessar.  M.,  speed  of  journey  to  Vla- 
divostok by,  124.  note 
Levey,  Mr.  George  Collins,  Secretary 
for    Exhibition    of    British    Arts 
and  Industries  to  be  held  in   St. 
Petersburg,  2^77.  note 
Li  Hung-chang,  415 
Listvenitchnaya,  crime  in.   120 
Loans,  see  under  Finance 
Lodz,  376,  note 


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468 


INDKX 


r 


INDKX 


469 


^i     1 


1  /  -  ♦ 

T         „     n      T.'     (  *      ritt'il     _'^<>.    'if-''*- 

Long.  K.  !-•  V  ••  '^'t'-^'*  --^ 
Lucgcr.  Dr..  cited.  4<^8 

Machines,  imports  of.  ^7S 
iMahaii.  Captain,  (luotcd-^- 

Aniericaii  foreign  policy.  "H.  44^ 
Great   Britain,   foreign   o\nmoxi>  re- 
garding, on,  447.   ''"^'" 
Persian  Ciulf,  on,  4-'9-  430 
T^lalachite,   i.U 
;Mancburia— 

Area  of.  430 

Japanese  intUience  in.  4^,  4^^ 

Rail vv  ay  through.   123- 1-^5 

Russian  annexation  of.  .V)<>.  4i? 
Manganese  industry.   I7M.  .'>7^' 
Manufactures.  Mo>c.)w  the  centre  ot. 


28 


Th 


e. 


'>  March  of  the  Biorneborger 

70 

Margelan,  27^^  34i 

Maruchak.   railway  to.  building.   240. 

Meal'times.  Russian  indefinitenes.  re- 
garding.  1 10      • 
Mendeleyef,  Professor,  cited    374 
Mercantile   marine,   contemplated   de- 
velopment of,  362 

Merv— 

Acqui>ition  of.  by  Russia.  23O 
Bokhara,  attitude  toward.  2<)2 
Fever  prevalent  at,  240.  241.  -^77 
Garrison  at.  27^  ..   " 

Moscow,   distance   from,    vki    Alex- 
androf-gai.    266:    via    Orenburg- 
Tashkent.  267 
Railwav  from,  to  Ku.hk  <  Murghab 

branch).  240  ami   note  241.  24.^- 
2Q5;    Russian    statement    regar<l 

Water-supply  of.  controlled  V>>   At- 
ghanistan.  27^1 

Meshed — 

Importance  of.  23B 

Railway  to.  projected.  218.  note 
Metric    system,    contemplated    intro- 
duction of.  3^2 
Michael,  Tsar,  house  of.  45 


AT-  u  .1]       Mr       1        Con-ul-Gencrul, 
Micnoil.       All-      J- 

(lU.UiMl.    1  17.   *'"'''•  -'^"^* 

Military  mtvicc,   .v.v   Army 

MmeraN-— 

l-:xtraction  and  producimn  ot.   .^ta- 

ti>tic>  of.  3.^9 
Wealth  in.  32.  .V'4.  .^JA-.^^J^^        ^ 
Mine,    iscc  also   Gnld   MmeO.   btate 

profit  from.  34'> 
Mintiuba.  revolt  at.  27O 
Mi>()vaya.    122 

Muvlene.  French  seizure  of.  303.  hWc 
MohammedaniMU     m    Bokhara.     2S.). 

.^03 

Mtiiigolia — 

Area  of.  43" 
Ru-^sian  control  of.  4^5 
Montenegro.    Ru^^an    relation,   with, 

3«9.  3^>:)-  404 
Morchansk.  i2().  1.^0 
,\b)rtgaged  estate>  in  Ru>Ma.  455 

Moscow — 

Amu-Darya.     <lirect    route    to.    via 

\lexandrof  gai.   2()5-2f>7 
Bokharan  trade  with.  2()(>.  2(^9 
Cannon  and  hell  of.  2':..  2b 
Chinese  city  in.  28.  45 
Churches  of.  24 
Commercial  activhy.  28.   2()6 
Fergana,  distance   from.  2(^7 
Kremlin,  the.  24.  23.  27.  .''^ 
Merv     distance   from,    via    Alexan- 
drof-gai.      2()6:      vii      Orenburg- 
Tashkent  route.  2^7 
Population  of.  24 
Siberian    Railway    terminu: 

102 

^b.scr.  M..  quoted.  308 

Mtskhet.  200.  201 

Mtijik,  sec  Peasants 

Muravief.  Count.   4.^8 

Muravief.  General.  90.  TOO 

T^lurgbab  Railway- 
Diplomatic  value  of.  241 
Future  possibilities  for.  243 
Route  of.  240  and  note 
Russian  statement  as  to.  419.  note 
Secrecy  regarding.  240 


in,    2^,, 


\ 


/; 


I\;!ihvav — 


I  r.idc    route    by.    possible    develop- 
ment  of,   295 
Murgliab  River.  240.  note,  276 
Murray,    Colonel,    Consul-General    at 

Warsaw,  quoted,  377,   iiote  * 
Mussulmans  in  Bokhara,  289,  303 

Navy — 

German,  development  of,  433 
Russian,  expenditure  on.  366 

Xercliinsk.  treaty  of.  98 

Neva  River — 
Dungeons  on,   10 
Floods  of.   14.   15 
Shallowness  of,  14 

New  Russia  Company,  Ltd.,  378-384 

Nicholas  II.,   Tsar — 

de  W'itte,  M..  confidence  in.  362.  385 
Peace  desired  by,  390,  417.  448 
Siberian    Railway,    interest  in,    113, 
124.  note 

Nicholas,  Prince,  of  ^lontenegro,  399, 
404 

Nikholsk.   125 

Nikolaiefsk.  founding  of.  100 

Xonu'fd  (furnished  apartments) — at 
Tashkent,  281  ;  at  Samarkand, 
335 

Novogeorgicvsk  fortress,  402,  note  * 

No\'orossisk.   ^,7^ 

"  Numbers,"  281,  335 

Odes.sa — 

de   W'itte.  M.,  connection  with.  351, 
352 

Trains  snov.ed  up  near.  43 
Oil.  see  Petroleum 
Oil -worked  steamers.    168,    169 
Omsk,   142.   145.  146 
Onions  and  mutton.  193 
Open- Door  policy  in   Persia.  440.  442 

Orenburg-Tashkent    railway    project, 

266.  267 
Orsk.  268 
Osh— 

Approach  to.  343,  345 


0^h-^~ 

A-i)cct  of.  346 

Foreigners  disliked  in,  347 

Gu\ern()r  of.  347 
Oxus   (Amu-Darya)    River — 

Arnold's  lines  on,  246 

Bridge  over,  244,  245 


PaxX-Germanism,  407-409 
Pan-Islamism,  289-291 
Pan-Slavi.sni,  39O,  409 
Paper  manufacture  in  Finland,  77 
Paper    money,    withdrawal    of    large 

proportion  of,  356 
Passports — 

Forging  of.  148.  158 

Peasants,  for.  361.  362 
Peace  Conference.  38 
Peasants — 

Characteristics  of.  see  Russians 
Condition  of.  42.  128,  369 
Passports  for.  361.  362 
Relief  works  for,  369 
Rent  paid  to  the  State  by.  349.  364; 
arrears  of.  written  off.  369 
Pen  j  deb,       railway       to       Maruchak 

through,   240.   note 
Persia — 

American  interest  in.  441 
Commercial    freedom    in,    essential, 

440.  442 
Customs.   Russian   control   of,  422, 

423 
Division  of  north  and  south  for  po- 
litical   control.    Russian    view   of, 
421.  441,   note 
German    railway    scheme     in.    2^7- 
259,  400.  402.   427;   terminus  for, 
445 
Great  Britain  — 

Commercial    disabilities    of.    424; 

trade  with,  in  1901.  425,  note 
Gunboats  of.  action  by,  427 
Interests  of.  424.  443.  444 
Imperial  Bank  of.  422.  425 
Loans  to,  422.  423,   note 
Military  possibilities  in.  428 


» 


f 

4 


470 


IN  1)1' X 


INDEX 


Ku.>>ia — 

Anil    of,     tor    outlet    on     IV-r-iari 
(ailt.    J3«.,    ~'37-    -'04.    4'H).    4^)1- 
4_>o :    >ugge-tc'(I    offer    ot    com 
incrcia!  oiillct  for,  4-''^-  43^ 
Inllucncc  of,  2*>4.  4-'-^  4-'3 
Trade  with,   JS5.   422 
Silver  c()in>  of.  m  'rran--Ca-l>ia,  -7') 
Status  quo  in.  maintenance  ol,  4-<>» 

427.  443.  444.  445 
Tariff  of.  for  Ru>Man  good-.  4-- 

Trade  with,  294.  4-'3.  ""^^' 
Trans-Casi)ian  water  ha-m  m.  -7^^ 

Persian  lamh   (wool),  -">-'.  JM5-  -''/> 

Peter  the  (ireat — 

Cottage  of.    10 

Etfigy  of.  13 

Influence  of.  22 

Siberian  affair>  in  time  of.  09 
Petroleum   industry-- 

Baku,  at,   i7')-  374-  MS 

Cauca>n>   district,   pro-pect   m,    1 7«'^- 

179 

Fountain^,  223.  225 

Output   of   od    compared    with    that 
of  United  States.  375 

Statistics  of.  22A-22(\  :.y).  37" 

Working  of  well-,  220  22^ 
Petropavlof-.k.    100 
Pictorial  representation,   lo.  .'^0 
Pig-iron,   .stati>tich  of   production   of. 

Police.    Ru-ian.    iS;    >carc!ty    (^t.    m 

Siberia,   120.  14') 
Political  pri-oner-,    I'n 
Population    of    Ru»ian    banpire.    4.-5- 

]U)tC 

Port    Arthur— 

Ac(pii>ition  of.  too.  3f)<» 

Railway     to.     from     Kharhm.     124. 

;/(>/(',    125 

Route    to.    from    Tnited    State>    via 
Siberia,    125 
Poud.  equivalent  of.  2^'H.  2^0.  342 
Poverty  in  Russia.  42.  128.  ^(^) 
■  Prisoners,  political.    i^H 
Prisons — 

Andijan.  at.  279 


Prisons — 

Hokhara.  at,  y^.).  yy^^ 

IrkntdN,  ;it.   157   i''^ 

d'a-hkeiit.  at,  270 
l'r(^tection.   e<hu;it!onal,    M .   de    W  lUe 

an  advocate  oi.  354,  359-3^' i-  Ml 
•'  Protection  "  by  j)crM.n  of  rank.  3^) 
I'skoN.  7 
Pulp  mdu-try   in   l"mlan<l.  7^'  7^ 

OuETTA-SiKsTAX  railway  project,  264, 
424 

Racks,  variety  of.  m  Russian  Empire, 

440 

Rail-,     te-ts     imp..-^ed     on     mamitad- 

urer-  of.  l)y  (jovernmeiU.  382 

Railway-  — 

Advance-    to,,    loans    to    meet.    y^}). 

3f)()  and   !i<>!r 
Alexandretta  -  Hit       scheme,       2(\:^. 

i!(>tr  X 
AUxandrof  gai  route  to  Merv   sug- 

Lic-ted.  2()5-2(>7 
R.aghdad    scheme   of   (".ermans .   236. 

,i,,tc  t.  237  230.  4'>f>-  4<^2.  427  ■•  !"■'•- 

]M)-ed  route  of.  23S.   239 
Cauca-ian  Ime-.   217.   21S  .;;;</   note, 

401 
Central   Asia,  direct  route  for  Ru- 

Man    Ime    m.    2f>3.    2()(>:    ])ropo-ed 

route.    2()(>,    2(^7  \    ue-t   c<»mmercial 

r,,mc.    2(>S;    Ru-ian    and    Indian 

connection.  J70,  271 
Construction  of  new   hue-.  4-' 
de    Witte.    M..    appointed    Director 

f>f.  333 
I^are-  <  >n.   1  i^>.  i  '7 
Freiglit   trafhc.   increase  in.    a'^C 
Calician       fronluT,       toward,      402. 

!u>tr  * 
(iaiiu,e  of,  3 
Indian  and  Ru--ian  connection  <ug- 

trc^ted.   270.    271 
Investment  in.  41^^ 
Isolated  route  of,  in  Rus-ia,  43 
T^Inrghab      branch,      .s'cr      ^lurghab 
Railway 


i^ 


Railways — - 

(  )(k's>a,   yi.   de  Witte'-  former  con- 
nection with.  33_' 
Orenburg-Ta-hkeiu      project,      266, 

2(^7 
Pa-scnger  traffic,  increase  in,  367 
Per-ia.   Russian  monopoly  in.  35 
Quetta-Siestan   project,   2()4,   424 
Siberian,  sec  under  Silieria 
State- 
Extent  of.  330.  3f>4.  366 
Revenue     from,     364,     367     a}id 
ncfc  ''^ 
Tashkent-Omsk  route,  268 
Trails- Alaskan  i)roject.    134.  uutc 
Trans-Caspian,  sec  that  title 
Travelling  by  {sec  also  under  Sibe- 
ria), 5,  8 
Tripoli-Koweit     scheme,     263     and 
note  ''' 
Rank  in  Russia.  36 
Rawliiisoii,  Sir  Henr}-.  cpioted,  416 
Rechnitzer.       Mr.       l^rnest.       railway 

scheme  of.  2()J,.  note  t 
Recruits,     illiteracy     of.     in     Rus>ian 

army.  431 
Reeds.    I3().   137 
Reformers.  O2 
Relief  works.  309 

Religious  fanaticism  in   Rus-ia.  40.  41 
Renton.  Mr..   1 19 

Rcsht,  road  from,  to  Tehran.  264.  422 
Re-taurants,  21 
Re\enue.  see  under  Finance 
Road-making   as   relief  works,  369 
RonianofY — 

Establishment  of,  as  rulcr-^.  99 
d\)nibs  of.  24.  43 
Roseber}-.    Lord,    quoted.   436.    note 
Roslian.      cession      of.      to     Bokhara. 

292 
Rouble — cqui\alent     value     of.      118. 
note;   M.   de   WitteA  reforms  re- 
garding. 354-356 
Roumania — 

Austria,  convention  with.  399,  404 
Russia,  relations  with,  403 
Runeberg,  statue  of,  69 


Rn: 


-Ki. 

454 


tiifficultie-    and    daneer-    of, 


Rusvian  Empire,  strength  of,  430 

Vastness  of.  449 
Russian  slafif  ofticers.  efficiency  of.  43 j 
Rus>ians,  characteri-tics  of — 

l)rlmke^nes^.  21.  43.  44.  30.  j^^ix  337 

Geniality.  21.  44.  35O 

Idealism.  47,  02 

Superstition    and    religious    fanati- 
cism, 40.  44.  130 

Time,  inexact  sense  of,   109 

Untruthfulness.  44 

Sai.ma  Ca.val,  ()7 
St.   Peterslnirg — 

Bars   and    saloon^   non-existent    in, 
21 

Character  of.  8.  9 

Churches  of.  9.  10 

Costliness  of  living  in.   k; 

Exhibition  of  Briti-h   .Arts  rtnd   In 
dustries  in.  376,   note 

Floods  in.   13 

Hotels   in.    19 

Island  Pcirks  of.   13.   14 

Police  of.   18 

Shops  in.   19 

Unheal thiness  of.    15 
Sakhalin,  162 
Salisbury,  the  Marquess  of — 

China,  despatch   regarding  German 
action     in.     434:     Anglo-(ieririan 
Convention  regarding  China  con 
eluded  by.  433 

Pro-Turkish  pohcy,  opinion  of.  414 

Russian    assurance    as     to     Per-i.'i, 
des]iatch  regarding.  423 
Samara.   130.   1(14.   163 
Samarkand — 

Asi)ect  of.  248 

Initclias  of.  301 

Pazaar  of,  319 

Discourtesy  of  Governor  of.  t,^,^ 

Foreigners  disliked  in,  320 

Garrison  at.  278 

Industries  of,  335 

Manuscripts  of,  320 


,  "ir  ■ 

'*  ■   r 
ft  • 


I-    -SSI 


47^ 


INDKX 


INDEX 


4  73 


Samarkand — 

Military  club  at.  333-33^ 

MosqiK'  of  the  Shah  Zindah  at.  33 1- 

'Xonicra  at.  x^S 
Prosperity  of,  2()i 
Rig. -.tan  of.  3-^-3-M 
Russian  (juarter  of,  33,V335 
Saratof,    167-i^K);    suggested    railway 
via   Alexandrof-gai  to  Anui  Dar- 
ya from,  2()S-^^^7 
Sarts.  2()7:  wages  of.  343 
Scenery,  sec  Landscape 
Schlussenlturg.  10 
Sea   outlets.    Ku-Man   de-ire   for,    tot. 

256.  421 
Sei-tan,    project    of    railway    to.    from 

Quetta.  2()4.  4-M 
Servia — 

Austrian  relations  with.  y)().  4<^3 
Russia,  relations  with.  3<)<);  Kus-ian 
attitude  toward,  403.  4^4 
Shamyl.  .75 

Shan-tung,  (iernian  claim  lo,  39^> 
Sheep,  182  iS(. 

Shignan,  ce-Mon  of.  to  Bokhara,  2^)2 
Shilka  River,  navigation  on.  123.  ! -'4 
Shops,  pictorial  adverti-ement>  of,   19. 

39 

Siberia    i  f<'r    rirrrs.    /i'ich.v,    cti'..    sec 

their  titles  )  — 

Agricultural  production  of.  1.^4;  dc^ 
velopment  of  agriculture.  370 

Alcohol,  sale  of.  not  a  State  monop- 
oly in.  35S 

Area  of.    130 

Climate  of.    1  18 

Co{)per  nnnes  in,  1 56 

Crime   in,    120,    148.    162 

r)eforeNtati(»n   in,    141 

Immigrants  to.  135-  C^O.  136 

Exiles  to.   139:   nmnber  of,  in   t8q8. 

161 
[export  of  butter  from,  in  IQOO.  370 
First  expedition  to.  97 
Gold  mining  in.   1 50- 1 52.   15.=^.  375 
Journey  to.  and  through.  127-141 
Muravief's  work  in,  99,   100 


Siberia- - 

Nature  of  country.  2 
Feasants  of.  455 

I'olice  in.  scarcity  of,  120,  149 
Siberia.  Railway  of — 

Heginning  of.   i(X),  J 10 

Bridges  of.  i  13 

Caravan    road    through    Kiakhta    a 
posNit)le  route  f(»r,  125 

Constr\iction  of.    1  13 

Cost  of.   12();  fund-  for.  3^4.  3^>6 

luigines  on.   10.^ 

Fares   on,    i  i(\    i  17 

F'reight  charge-  oii,   153.  154 

Length  of.    125 

Light    rail-  on.    i  i7 

Manchunan   -ection  of,   123  1 25 

Opinion-  regarding.    1.-3 

Rate  of  -peed  ou.    10.^,   h/k   ll^'.  T4T 

Station-   on.    118;   biiffels.    118.    138. 

14-'.   143 

Trattic  I  '11,  1  17  dud  ih'te.  1 18 
Tram-  on  -«lai]>.   102;  weekly  train 

de  lieve.    10-'   1  10,    127.   130 
Trail-  C"as|)!an     Railway    compared 
Willi- m    comfort.    2,W  ;    in    -peed, 
250  :  in  imp<  irtaiice.  254 
WatciuT-  oil.    I  18.    I  19 
W'aUTway-  of,    140 
Silk  of   l-.okliara.  .^oo 
Singing  1><'\-  ''f  li'ikhara  and  Sainar- 

kand,   .^oi.  ,>o  .' 
Sipiagin.      M.,      In-pector  ( ieneral     of 

Irkm-k  i>n-Mn.    lOo.   ihi 
Sir<im\atiiikof.    M..  cited,  414 
Skobelef.    (.eiieral,    2}() 
Sht'ttsi   -ect.  40.    l.so 
.Smuggling,  f><) 
Social     change     in     iiKxlern      Rii  — la, 

45-' 
Social    fabric,    cliaracteri-tic-    of,    38, 

.V).  45 
Soldier-— 

Characteristic<  of,  44 
Length  of  service  of,  8()  and  note 
^b)bilisation  of.  for  diplomatic  pur- 
poses, 241.  4''^ 
Pay  of.  44 


ft 


\ 


Staal,  M.  de,  cited.  425 

Stamp,   mourning,   is-ued  in  Finland, 

79.  85 
Statistic>  of  increa-e  of  population  in 
Russia.   451.    note 
Of  railv.ay  construction   in  Russia. 

451 

Steel  — 

Imports  of,    T>7S 

Production    of,    statistics    of.    359; 
jjroduction  in  i8c^_'  and   Kpo.  370. 
note 
Stevens.   Mr.   Patrick.   British   Consul 

at  Batum.  quoted.  180 
Stoddart.  Colonel  — 

hidi^cretions  of.  306.  309 
Murder  of.  2HH.  312.  313.  3^7 
Stretensk.    railway   route   from   Miso- 

vaya  to.  123 
Students.  Russian— 
Disturbatices  of.  453 
'Jdieoretical  views  of.  62 
Uniforms  worn  by.  20 
Sugar,  depots  for.  at  Bokhara.  293 
Superstition.  40,  44,   130 
Sveaborg,  71 
Sweden — 
Language    of,    spoken    in    Finland, 

67 
Russia,  attitude  toward,  388,  note 


T.\i(.A,   140.   145 
'llijiks,  280 

Tamara.  Queen.  174.  190 
Tamerlane,  tomb  of.  3-'0.  328.  329,  333 
and  note:  mausoleutn  of  his  wife, 

329-33  L  333 
Tashkent- 
Bokhara,  attitude  toward,  292 
Citadel  of,  283.  284 
Furnished  rooms  in.  281 
Garrison  at.  278.  282 
Governor-General  of  Turkestan  res- 
ident at.  278 
T^Iilitary  club  in.  281 
Native  quarter  of.  283.  284 
Observatory  at,  282 


Tashkent — 
Orenl)urg-Ta.->hkent  railway  project, 
266,   2(}7 

Population  of,  280,  2S1 

Prison  at.  279 

Rcalschiile  at.  282.  283 

Route    (journey  and  distances)   to, 
from  Krasnovodsk.  249 

Russian  cpiarter  of.  281 

Seizure  of,  279.  280 

Shops  of.  281 
Tatars.  207 

Tatistcheff.  M..  quoted.  385.  note 
Taxes.  382 

Tea  plantations  at  Batum,  180 
Tehran,  road  to.  from  Reshi,  204.  422 
Tiilis— 

Bath  of.  213 

Bazaar  of.  205 

Buildings  of.  204 

Characteristics  of.  202 

Costumes  of.  207-209 

de  Witte.  M..  educated  at.  351 

Fiotel  de  Londres.  177.  204 

Importance  of.  203 

Languages  of.  178.  202.  205 

Old  quarter  of,  206 
Timber  {sec  also  Wood)  — 

Barges  of.  on  the  Volga.  168 

Price  of,  increasing.  376 

Siberian  port  for.  141 
Timur.   sec  Tamerlane 
Tobolsk,  98 
Tolstoy,  Leo.  Count — 

Appearance  of.  51.  52 

Etiiigration  of  Dukhobortsi  assisted 
by.  41 

Exconmiunication  of.  56-61 

Home  of.  49.  50 

Influence  of,  61 

Opinions  of.  52-58.  61 

Title  of.  48 

Visit  to.  49-62 
Tolstoy.  Countess,  protest  of,  to  Holy 

Synod,  58 ;  reply  to,  60 
Tomsk.  145 
Treaties — 

Aigun,  100 


. 


i\ 


i  , 


««*••»• 


•  •  •  » 


^ 
A 


I 


472 


M)t-,X 


INDIX 


4  73 


Saniafk.tiitl - 

Militar}-  I'luli  :a\.    s^'  3^ 

.MnMiiu-  (>i  tik    Sisali  /iiulah  at.  ,^,'i- 

333 

A  ij-iii-rd  at .   .vv'i 

ProsptTit)    "i,  Ji)! 
Kigistan  <  -t.  /v-'o-.U'.'s 
Russian  <|uarter  of.  .i^.v.\v=i 
Saratnf.     in-   l'^):     -vi^gc-tr<!     railway 
via   AU'xandrnf  gai   to  Amu  Dar- 
ya frniii,  _'()5  J(>7 
Sarts,  2Q7  :  wagc->  of.  343 
ScfiuTy,  .saa'   Laii(l><:a[)C 
ScliUisM'iiburg.   10 
Sea    outlet^,    Ru^-iaii    desire    for.    loi, 

256.   421 
Sci>tan.    project    of    railway    to.    truin 

Quctta,  204.  424 
Serv  ia — 

Austrian  relation^  with,  3()<).  4^^ 
Russia,  relations  with.  3()<; ;  Rus-ian 
attitude  toward,  403,  404 
Shaniyl,  175 

Shan-tung,  German  claim  to,  3(/) 
Sheep,  182-186 

Shignan,  ce>Ni(Hi  of.  to  Bokhara.  2g2 
Shilka  River,  navigation  on.  123.  124 
Shops,  pictorial  advertisements  of,  19, 

39 

Siberia    ( f(>r    rk'crs,    toicns,    etc.,   sec 

their  titles)  — 

Agricultural  production  of,  154:  de- 
velopment of  agriculture.  370 

Alcohol,  sale  of.  not  a  State  monop- 
oly in,  358 

Area  of,   139 

Climate  of.   1 18 

Copper  mines  in,  156 

Crime  in.    120.   148,    162 

Deforestation  in.   141 

Immigrants  to.   135,  T3Q.  I5^ 

Exiles  to,  139;  number  of,  in  1898, 
t6i 

Export  of  butter  froiu.  in  r()00.  370 

P'irst  expedition  to,  97 

Gold  mining  in.    150-152,    155.  375 

Journey  to.  and  through,  127- 141 

Muravief's  work  in,  99,    100 


Siberia — 

Xattire  <  >f  coiititr}-.  2 

Peasants  of,  455 

Police  in,  scarcity  of.   i  jo.  140 

Siluria.   Railway  of — 
llcLiinnnii:  -  >\.    hm?,    i  lo 
I'lriiliir-  <  if ,    113 
('ara\an    mad    llnaaiul!    Kiakltta    a 

postal 'Ir  la  aile  1"  -r.    I  -'5 
Coi!-t  nu-fii  >u  1  >t.    I  !  3 
("i.-i  (.f,    120;  tiind-  for,  3''4.   ^(^) 
lAigine-  f  ai.    103 
I'kare-   <  ai.    i  10,    117 
l-'reight  eliarge-  *i!i.   i '.v   I  "4 
l.rni;tli   111.    125 
Eight   raiK  on,   i  17 
Manchunan    -.(.-eliiai   nf,    123-125 
()l)mion^   regarding.    153 
Rati'  of   >pta'd  on.    103.   io'».   116.   141 
Station-   on.    118;    butTet-.    I  iS.    138, 

14-'.    143 
nV.atVic  on.   117  and  note,  118 
Train-  (tn — daily.   102;  weekly  train 

iie  lii.ve.   102- 1  10.    127.   130 
Tran-C'a>pian     Railway    c(Hiii)ared 
with     m   comfort.   2^2\    in   speed, 
250  :   in  importance,  254 
Watcher-  (in.    i  18.    i  19 
Waterway-  of.    140 
Silk  of   Bokhara.  300 
Singing  boy-  (d'  Intkhara  and  Samar- 
kand. 301.  Ml '. 
Sipiagin.      M..      ln-pector-(ieneral     of 

Irkut-k   i)ri-on.    i(>o.   lOi 
Siromyiitnikof.   M..  cited,  414 
Skobelef.   (ieneral.    2T,() 
Sho^^tsi  -ect.  40,   130 
Smuggling,  66 
Social     change     in     modern     Russia, 

Social    fabric,    characteristics    of,    38, 

39.  45 

Soldier- — 

Characteri-tic-  of.  44 
Eength  of  -ervice  of.  8(;  and  note 
Mobilisation  of.  for  diplomatic  pur- 
poses. 241.  418 
Pav  of.  44 


Staal.  M.  de,  cited,  425 

Stamp,  mourning,  issued  m   Finland, 

79,  85 

Statistics  of  iiu  rease  of  population  in 

Russia,  451.   note 

()i    railway  construction  in  Russia, 

451 

Sterl  — 

import-  of.   375 

Production    of,     statistics    of,    359; 
production  111  iS»j2  and  1900,  370. 
note 
Ste\en-.   Mr.   I'atrick.   l')rili-h   Consul 

at  Batum,  (ptoied,  180 
Sto(l(lart.  Colonel — 

Indi-cretions  of.  306.  309 
Murder  of.  288.  312,  313.  31/ 
Stretefi-k.    railway    route   from   Miso- 

vaya  to,  123 
Students.  Russian — 
Disturbances  of.  453 
Theoretical  views  of.  62 
Cniforms  worn  by.  20 
Sugar,  depots  for,  at  Bokhara,  293 
Superstition.  40,  44,   130 
Sveaborg,  71 
Sweden — 

Language    of,    spoken    in    Finland, 

67 
Russia,  attitude  toward.  388.  note 


Taiga,  140.  145 
Tajiks,  280 

Tamara,  Queen,  174,  190 
Tamerlane,  tomb  of,  320,  328,  329.  333 
and  note ;  mausoleum  of  his  wife, 

329- 33h  333 
Tashkent — 

Bokhara,  attitude  toward,  292 

Citadel  of,  283,  284 

Furnished  rooms  in,  281 

Garrison  at,  278.  282 

Governor-General  of  Turkestan  res- 
ident at.  278 

Military  club  in.  281 

Native  quarter  of,  283.  284 

Observatory  at,  282 


Tashkent — 
Orenbiiig-Tashkent  railway  project, 
266,  267 

Population  of,  280,  281 

Prison  at.  279 

Realschide  at,  282,  283 

Route    (journey  and  distances)   to, 
from  Krasnovodsk.  249 

Russian  cjuarter  of.  281 

Seizure  of,  279,  280 

Shops  of,  281 
Tatars,  207 

TatistchelT,  ^l.,  quoted,  385.  note 
Taxes,  382 

Tea  plantations  at  Batum.  iSo 
Tehran,  road  to,  from  Resht,  264,  422 
Tilli>— 

Bath  of,  213 

Bazaar  of,  205 

Buildings  of,  204 

Characteristics  of,  202 

Costumes  of,  207-209 

de  Witte,  M.,  educated  at,  351 

Hotel  de  Londres,  177,  204 

Importance  of,  203 

Languages  of.  178,  202,  205 

Old  quarter  of,  206 
Timber  {sec  also  Wood)  — 

Barges  of,  on  the  Volga,  168 

Price  of,  increasing,  376 

Siberian  port  for,  141 
Timur,  see  Tamerlane 
Tobolsk,  98 
Tolstoy,  Leo,  Count — 

Appearance  of,  51,  52 

Emigration  of  Dukhobortsi  assisted 

by,  41 

Excommunication  of,  56-61 

iHome  of,  49,  50 

Influence  of,  61 

Opinions  of,  52-58,  61 

Title  of,  48 

Visit  to,  49-62 
Tolstoy,  Countess,  protest  of,  to  Holy 

Synod,  58 ;  reply  to,  60 
Tomsk,  145 
Treaties — 

Aigun,  100 


J 


474 


INUl.X. 


INDEX 


475 


) 


Treaties — 

Anglo-German   Convention    regarci- 
iiig    Cliina.    433  :    regarding    i'er- 
sian  (inlf,  44().  note 
Berlin.  440,  note 
Nerchin>k.  98 

Trade — 

Afghani>tan,  with,  decline  in.  285; 
futnre  possil)ilitie>  of.  294 

Bokhara,  with,  J^7^  292-296 

F3riti>h.  in  Central  Asia,  decline  of, 
239.  233'  ^9^'  ^99.  440.  44 J  ■.  Briti>h 
merchants'  price  lists,  t,77,  note 

Persia,   with,   285.  294.  4-'5,   note 

Price  of  iron  goods  fixed  hy  dov- 
ernment.  383 

Statistics  of,  Russian  secrecy  re- 
garding, 285 

Tests  imposed  by  Government,  t,?'2. 

383^ 
Trans-Caspia— 

Cotton  export  of,  275'  export  from 

Andijan,  254;   from  Bokhara,  292 
Extent  of,  272 
Grain  imports  to.  293 
Population  of.  27;^,  275 
Scenery  of,  234.  2^3,  243 
Water  basin  of,  276 
Trans-Caspian  Railway — 
Boat  connection  with,  234 
Construction  of,  time  employed  in, 

250 
Fever  in  district  of,  240,  277 
P^inancial  success  of,  253.  255,  285 
First  class  non-existent  on,  232 
Map  of,  232 
Murghab   branch  of,  sec   Murghab 

Railway 

Rate  of  speed  on,  249,  250 

Revenue  of,  180 

Sand  drifts  on,  243,  244 

Siberian  Railway  compared  with- 
in comfort,  2^2;  in  speed,  250;  in 
importance,  254 

Starting-point  of.  230 

Trade  facilities  effected  by,  292,  294, 
296 

Trains  and  post  trains  on.  232,  23:^ 


Tree->  in  Ru-^ia,  6 
Tripoli    ' 

Military  -ervice  obligation  acceptetl 

by.  2fX) 

Railway  between    Kuweit  and,   pru- 
lected.  2()^^  and  n(>te  t 
'rrutli-tellmg  m  diplomacy,  438.  439 
'r>ar.  pea-^aiit  wor-^hip  ot,  45^ 
T-^arlt'^lll,   K><; 
T>ar.s — 

Coronation  of.  27.  32^,6 

Intluence  of.  increasing.    ^,7.  38.  45 1 

Sentiment  for.  35.  36,  37-  "^'^'' 

Titles  (if.  35 

'bombs  of.    10 
Tula,  47 

Turbal.   Russian  force  at.  34 
Turkestan — 

Cott(»n  pnnhict  of.  30,  31.  2^)9.  341" 

Imports  and  exports  of.  254 
Land  tax  in.  342 
Military  headcpiarters  of.  278 
Turkey — 
Decay  of.  398 

]>ench  claim  against.  393-  "'^/'' 
Germ.-m  relations  with.  258-261,  389. 

399-401 
Mollahs  from,  in  Trans-Caspia.  290 
Russian   understanding   with,   as   to 

railways  in   Asiatic  Turkey.  4-^7 
Sultan  of.   Moslem  attitude  toward. 

289 
Turkomans — 
Art  of,  273 
Carpets  of.  273-275 
Costume  of.  246,  247 
T  burses  of.  275 

Russian  conquest  of.  2}6.  237,  297 
Tweedy,  Mr.,  oil  wells  of,  219-224 


Underclothing,  21.  22 

Uniforms,  20 

United   States,  see  America 

University  students- 
Theoretical  views  of,  62 
Uniforms  worn  by,  20 


I  i. 

'  If 

'  i 

I  1!  ' 

I 


Ural   Mountains — 

Iron  works  in,  156 

Products  of.  133.  374,  37^ 

Scenery  of,   130 
I'rjumka,    132 
Usofka,  37^-383 
I'zum-Ada,  230 

\'ami!Kkv,  Arm  I  NIL'S,  228 
Velvet  of  Bokhara,  300 
Vermin — 

.Murder  by,  228,  288,  312,  313,  31? 

Prevalence  of,  44,  23^, 
Vcrsts,  equivalent  of,  118,  note 
Viborg.  67 

Vierzhbolovo  (Wirballen),  4 
Villages  in  Russia,  poverty  of,  42,  43, 

128 
Vilna,  7 

Vishnegradski,  M.,  353,  354,  357 
Vladikavkaz,  170,  171,  181 
Vladimir       Alexandrovitch,       Grand 

Duke,  88 
Vladivostok — 

Distance  to,  from  Moscow,  123 

Founding  of,  100 
Volga  River — 

Bridge  over,  130 

Journey  down,  164-170 

Navigation  of,  170,  note 

Scenery  of,   167 

Traflfic  on,  168 
von  Beck,  Baron,  405 
von  Waldersee,   Count,  leadership  of 
allied  forces  secured  for,  397,  398, 

434 

Wages  of   New   Russia   Company's 

employees,  381 
Walton,    Mr.,    Vice-Consul,    quoted, 

371 
Wardrop,    Mr.,   Vice-Consul,  quoted, 

371 
Wei-hai-wei,  396 

Western   modes,   modern  attitude  of 

Russia  toward,  8,  9 

Wheat   (see  also  Grain)  — 

Low  price  of,  in  Eastern  Russia,  129 


Wheat- 
Siberian  production  of,  154 
William  IL,  Emperor  of  Germany — 
England,  visit  to,  397 
France,  attitude  toward,  391,   392 
Navy,   declarations   regarding.   433 
Pan-Germanism  of,  407 
Russia,  attitude  toward,  395-397 
Turkish  policy  of,  389,  400,  402 
Williams,  Colonel,  311 
Windt,  ]\Ir.  Harry  de,  railway  scheme 

of,   154,  note 
Wine.  Caucasian,  180,  193,  209,  210 
Wirballen  (Vierzhbolovo),  4 
Witte,  ]\L  de,  Cerge  Julievitch,  Min- 
ister of  Finance — 
Address  of,  to  the  Tsar,  regarding 

Manchurian  railway,  124.  note 
Budget  of  1902.  Report  on,  386,  note 
Career  of,  350-354.  454 
Coal    industry    development    advo- 
cated by,  375 
Finland,  military  proposals  for,  dis- 
approved by,  88 
Imperial  confidence  in,  362,  385 
Loans,     statement    regarding,    366, 

note 
Policy  of,  354-356,  370 
WolfY,    Rev.    Dr.    Joseph,    career    of, 
310-313   and   notes;   quoted,   297, 

313 
Women — 

Bokhara,   in,  302,  303 

Finland,  in,  position  of,  80 

Georgia,   in.  209 
Wood  (see  also  Timber)  — 

Cost  of,  30 

Fuel  of,  on  railways,  5,  7 
Wood-pulp — 

Demand  for,  376 

Finland,  industry  in,  76-78 
Workmen,  381 

Yakutsk,  98 

Yasinovataya,  378 

Yate,  Colonel  C.  E.,  cited,  419,  note 

Yelagin,  13 

Yenisseisk,  98 


u~. 


I 


476 


INDKX 


Yermak,  exploits  of,  96,  97 
"  Yermak  "   (steamer).  122 
Younghusband,  IMajor  F.  E.,  quoted, 
430 

Zaitzef,  Colonel,  347 


Zcnistro  taxes,  382 
Zhoravko-Pokorski,     Mr.     D.,    cited, 

268.  Jiote 
Zinovieff,     M.,     attitude    of.     toward 

French  claim  on  Turkey.  393,  note 
Zlataoust,  131,  133 


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